Down On Whores and Shan't Quit Ripping Them
by The DG Forum
Summary: Draco Malfoy is not pleased to work with Ginevra Weasley on the Ripper case in the slums of Victorian London. But when matters take a shocking turn, he finds himself fighting for all he holds dear—and racing the clock before the killer strikes again.
1. Chapter 1

This story was written for **hannah askance **in **_The DG Forum Fic Exchange - Summer 2019_** by a member of our forum. For more details, please visit our page.

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A/N: Here it is, a Victorian London D/G AU! Every detail is as accurate as I can make it, except when there's a reason why it isn't (there was no physical resemblance between the Ripper victims, for instance.) How much research was done for this? Let's just say that the last chapter is the bibliography, and …it's a long one. LONG. Enjoy, and if you have any questions, please ask them in the comments, and I'll answer them after the reveal.

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For most of Victoria's reign, journalists, social reformers, and Christian missionaries had been decrying the horrors that they observed in the East End…

_Hallie Rubenhold, The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper._

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_Friday, August 31, 1888_

_2:00 a.m._

_Whitechapel Road, East End of London _

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"Yew aw the enney, ennysuckle,"

A woman's voice drifted through the thick, dirty air, loud and defiant. A raspy laugh followed, and a second voice picked up the song.

"Oi am ther bee… "

They joined to sing in raucous chorus.

"Oi'd like ter sip ther enny from those red lips, yew see."

The two unseen women were walking down Flower and Dean Street. Just off the larger Commercial Street, in the shadow of Christ's Church, the area was considered the worst of the worst in a place that already contained the most desperate, grinding poverty in all of London. The East End was bounded by the old city of London on the west, the square mile once fenced in by the Romans, on the north by Whitechapel Road, and on the east by a string of grey, monotonous suburbs. It held a handful of respectable streets clinging onto shabby gentility with scrubbed fingernails, a few nests of socialists who led protests in Trafalgar Square, and then, an endless slum. A warren of crooked, crazy streets; a choking pall of coal dust and gas fumes; a tangle of dilapidated buildings that had once been company housing for the weavers of Spitalfields, before the relentless iron hand of the Industrial Revolution had destroyed the handicrafts that had provided independence for the poor of the past.

Even during the wee hours of a Friday morning, the cobbled streets were filled with people, punctuated by brief lulls when one particular street or alley might be empty for a minute or two. There was no release from poverty but the brief forgetfulness of drink, so everyone imbibed. Drunken groups staggered in and out of pubs until the first street vendors' coffee stalls began to open and the first watercress sellers headed for the markets.

The two women turned the corner and passed George Street. One was young, red-lipped, and cheaply but showily dressed, a stuffed bird bobbing up and down on the red satin plate hat skewered to her glossy dark hair.

"'Ow much, love?" a costermonger asked her, pausing as he pushed a cart towards Commercial Street.

"More'n you can afford," she retorted.

He answered her with a roar of laughter. "Going straight, then?"

"No, but unless yer got the brass, piss off," was her elegant answer.

He laughed again and kept pushing the cart, swiftly disappearing into the fog.

"I'll go straight 'bout the same time yer do, Pol," the young woman said to her companion.

"So that'd be never, then? Mebbe _you'll _'ave the chance, Cho. But for the likes o'me…" Polly, the older of the two, gave a shrug and a laugh. Her grey-streaked blonde hair straggled around her sculpted face, which retained the traces of youth and beauty as the dirty skies would still hold a ray of two of sunlight come morning.

"Doubt it. For us gay girls, why even bother givin' it a go?" Her friend waved a grimy hand in dismissal. Cho Chang was a pretty woman, many years younger than Polly, with a hard, exotic face. Half-Chinese, the bastard daughter of a British officer who had been stationed in the South China seas at the end of the second Opium Wars, she had the unmistakable air of one who has come down in the world and is no longer surprised by it, whose choices have long been narrowed to the brothel, the workhouse, or the streets.

"Right. When you been done wrong to, you been done wrong to," said Polly. "Go straight? 'Ood give us a second chance if we tried?"

Cho put a hand on Polly's shoulder and glanced to the left. The cluster of drunken women stumbled on, passing them both and leaving the two alone on the street for the moment.

"I don't know. But, Mary Anne—oh, all right; _Polly_, I don't think that using proper names makes a bit of difference either way, but all right- you really oughtn't to remain on the streets tonight." Cho's speech was instantly more precise, more educated, the Cockney accent completely gone. The truth was clear; the two women were constantly playing a part on the streets of the East End, hiding their true origins.

When Polly replied, she sounded much the same. "I suppose you're going to warn me about the Whitechapel murderer, are you? Well, one night or another, it's much the same, Cho."

Cho shivered. "Please—don't even joke about that sort of thing, Pol. Why don't you come back with me tonight to the Thrawl Street doss? I'm sure we could scrape up another half-shilling. Rose Potter still owes me a fair bit, if I can only find her."

"Don't trouble yourself about me." Polly looked at her friend wistfully, her blue eyes faded and bloodshot, her softening expression looking very much as if she wished that worry would do any good.

A drunk couple came out of the Brittania Pub and ambled along Flower and Dean, giggling. Absorbed in each other as they clearly were, they also were more than close enough to hear the two women. Polly's face and manner and stance hardened instantly, as did her manner of speaking.

"I'll soon get me doss money," she laughed. "See what a jolly bonnet I've got now?"

"Pol—really—" Cho began.

"Don't worry abaht yers truly!" Polly tipped her black straw bonnet mockingly to Cho, wisps of pale hair blowing from under the black velvet rim. Then she turned and sauntered away. Cho watched her leave for several moments, finally shaking her head and starting back towards Thrawl Street.

A young woman stood in the doorway of the Jolly Cat pub halfway down the street, her head turned back, screeching at some unseen tormentor.

"Enough o'that! Enough o'that then!" she cried, shaking off a stubby, hairy hand. "Oi'll get me money. See if I don't."

A bellow of goatish laughter followed her as she stumbled out into the street and into Cho, who instinctively put her arms round the other woman. Then her eyes widened in surprise as she recognized her.

"Rose Potter!" Cho said sternly. "Yer owe me ten shillings. Where is it? Give it to me, now."

"Don't 'ave it, Cho." Rose's words were slurred with drink.

Cho lowered her voice. "Then get it and get it now. I can still catch Polly if I hurry back."

"Polly?" Rose asked muzzily, her bottle-green eyes struggling to focus on Cho's face. She was a few years older than Cho and still a pretty woman, although between drink and hard living, she was sinking fast.

Cho gave Rose a shake. "Yes. Polly. _You_ know." Her voice dropped further. "Mary Anne. I won't let her stay out tonight, not if I can help it. You know what happened to Martha and Emma."

Rose's parched, pink lips trembled. "I truly don't have the money, Cho."

"You mean you spent it on drink!" Cho's face hardened further.

"Well, what else is there to do?" Rose retorted. "What other option exists for any of us? I don't know what you expect from me besides. There's nothing else I_ can_ do."

Cho's dark eyes narrowed. "I don't want to hear your excuses. You're luckier than all of us put together. You _could _get out of all of this if you liked, Rose. You have someone who actually _wants _to find you, and help you as well. Why you don't just let Harry take you away and into decent lodgings, I'll never understand—"

A jovial, red-faced man with a brown walrus mustache and a battered bowler hat grabbed Rose by the hand, missed by several inches, and tried again. "'Ere, wot's all this abaht taking Rosie away? On a vy'cytion? To th' seaside, mebbe?" He laughed uproariously, reeling from side to side.

"'Allo, Tom!" Rose smiled and pulled away from Cho. Her Cockney accent appeared again. "Me bruvver 'Arry bin lookin' fer me again, that's all. 'Ee wants me to go straight. C'n yer imagine? The loikes o'me?"

Cho glared at the pair and seemed about to say something more. Rose ignored her, tucked a strand of raven-black hair behind one ear, and smiled up at the man. "Let's go on a right bender, Tom," she said, and the pair walked away without a second glance.

Cho bit her lip and kept moving towards Thrawl Street.

A few blocks away in the opposite direction, a man stepped out of one of the side alleys and laid a hand on Polly's arm. She looked up at him. Respectable enough, too much so for this area, truth be told; tweed jacket, polished boots, a bowler hat, a neatly barbered blond beard. His face was shadowed by the brim of the hat.

Without a word, she knew what he wanted.

She longed to push him away and hurry on to one of the sleeping hidey-holes she knew in a back street. She would be cold and damp come morning, but she could keep her dignity. Polly desperately wanted to hold onto a shred of self-respect.

"It looks like rain, wouldn't you say?" he asked.

The darkening skies threatened a freezing downpour, Polly knew. If she curled up in a cubbyhole behind a fence or wedged her aching body into a doorway for the night, she knew that she might easily wake up with pneumonia. In the world where she was now forced to live, there would be no cure. She wondered dully why she cared. The fluttering spark of life was impossible to quench, it seemed, and self-preservation won out. Loathing herself for the words, she spoke.

"'Ello, luv. So it does, and nasty wevver too. she said. "Lookin' for some company?"

"As a matter of fact, I am," he replied in a flat, colorless voice. Not quite posh, but not Cockney either. Her mind made a swift calculation as to how much she could ask for.

"Three shillings should buy yer as much as y'want," she said, hoping that he would give her the rather high price. There might be a bit of bargaining next.

He nodded. "Very well. Will you walk with me? I know a place."

"As yer like," Polly replied, taking his arm.

He seemed well enough, and she knew that she had no choice. He offered a few shillings, enough to get her a bed for the night in one of the doss houses. Perhaps she'd return to Thrawl Street for it, although then again, perhaps not. She was in one of her darkest moods, when she did not wish to see anyone who reminded her of the world that cast her out—and people like Cho Chang did exactly that. Rose Potter too. She herself could go to the Flower and Dean doss, maybe.

It was the darkest part of the night, and as close to silence as the East End ever came. They walked down Old Montague and passed the pungent smell of the stables and soap works. A large, overgrown field stretched to their right.

"Do you know what that is?" he asked, breaking the silence.

"Ol' burial ground, I think," said Polly.

"Yes. It's no longer used, and I imagine developers shall build on it at some point, but I happen to know that no-one's moved the bodies. Imagine standing in the middle of that graveyard at about this time of night…"

He was an odd one, all right, she thought.

They passed the Palace Theater, dark and silent, and the Quaker graveyard to the north. To Polly's intense relief, the man had no more to say about unmoved bodies or unquiet graves. At last, they reached the narrow, cobbled Buck's Row, where he stopped just in front of a gated stable entrance.

Why had he wanted to walk all this way only to end up in a courtyard behind a stable, she wondered. The area was boxed in and gave an illusion of privacy, but she could see a row of well-built terrace houses just opposite, the sort that usually were occupied by the better class of tradesmen. She wondered if he might be taking her into one of them, but he made no further move to keep walking. There must have been quite a number of people asleep in the houses, or working in the warehouse opposite, who might hear them or happen upon them. There was likely a night watchman at the nearby boys' school. She could even hear the clatter of the Northeast Railway Line nearby, at the Whitechapel Station.

_Might almost as well be in the middle of the high street, really,_ she thought. Well, as long as he paid, she couldn't afford to care. Most likely he wanted a knee trembler up against a wall, and for some odd reason, this location appealed to him.

He leaned closer to her. She waited to have her breasts fondled, or her skirts raised. Instead, his mouth touched her ear.

"Mary Anne," he whispered.

She stiffened. "Ow d'you know my real name?" He must have overheard Cho talking to her; she was always trying to tell that girl that she needed to be more discreet about saying anything at all that might lead to the discovery of their true identities.

"Not only your first, but your last," he went on, his voice hissing in her ear like a pleasant, treacherous snake. "And far more about your history than you imagine."

She sucked in her breath, the sound horribly loud in the still dank air. Something was wrong, a wrongness that she could not mistake, that she felt in her bones.

"Like knows like," he said. His smile showed under the shadow of the bowler hat.

What she was seeing was not his true appearance, she knew. His face kept shifting, somehow. And the face peeping out behind the false façade looked familiar.

For the first time, she felt a twinge of real fear. Swiftly, her eyes darted from side to side, seeking an exit. Oh, for a peeler to come along now!

"Oh, yes. I know a great deal about you, my dear…" He moved closer so that she felt the warmth of his body against the chill morning, lifting her hair to whisper even more closely in her ear. "You call yourself Polly Chapman. But your real name is Mary Anne Longbottom. Isn't it? And no need for the false Cockney accent with me."

She opened her mouth to scream. It would get her in a deal of trouble if a copper found them, but she no longer cared.

He reached up suddenly, one strong, slender hand spreading swirls of a dark streaming vapor around her face. The fumes smelled like roses, sweeter than any scent she'd known in years, and she could not stop herself from breathing them in. Then she could not scream, or speak, or make any noise at all.

"That's better," he said, almost tenderly. "I can guess all that you wish to say to me at the moment, or demand of me. So I shall forestall your words, knowing that you cannot speak your questions. Yes, your fears will come to pass. No, I do not plan to use an Unforgivable."

Once, she had been a part of that world in which everyone knew what those words meant. She had left that word, or more accurately, had been forced out. But she still knew the meaning. Mary Anne sobbed, but she could make no sound. She understood, now, what was to come, and would have understood whether this man had said the words or not. For all of her flippant words to Cho Chang half an hour earlier, she found that she did not want to die, that she was not ready. But there was no way to say the words.

"This part will go quickly. You will feel no pain—I promise that much." He caressed her weatherbeaten face, his grey eyes scanning her features, as if searching for something that he already knew he would not quite find. "I bear you no personal grudge, Mary Anne."

She gathered the last of her strength. "Then why… why _me_…" she managed to choke out.

He only shook his head. Then he laid her onto her back, his hands almost gentle. She saw the gleam of metal at his belt as he moved.

He sat back on his heels for a moment. "I believe," he said musingly, "that the other two might have felt more satisfied if they'd only known the identity of their killer. I do wish I'd been able to offer that much, and I supposed it would have made no difference at all if I had. I shall do so for you, Mary Anne Longbottom. _Revelo."_

He passed a hand before his face, and his features shimmered, shifted, and changed into their true form.

And she did know him.

From some last reserve of strength, of lost magic, she found her voice one last time.

"I know you," she croaked. "I remember you. You are…"

And then she spoke his name, and she named him correctly. But it did not matter. The effort had taken the last of her strength, and she was beyond speaking secrets to any living being.

He looked down on her prone body in the street. "Poor little bitch," he said, almost pityingly. "It's a bit of a shame, really. But you will serve as perfect bait." He knelt down next to her. "Even better than the others…"

Then he got out his knife, and he went to work.

He was as careful and painstaking as the surgeon he had always longed to be, had his station in life not prevented him. True, he did not have quite enough time to be as thorough as he would have liked; at three-thirty in the morning, he heard footsteps approaching. He was under an invisibility spell, the fool police or a passer-by could walk right past him and never know he was there, as he had proven last time- but he disliked taking chances.

Still, he was satisfied enough. This was the first murder he had the time and the leisure to do at all _properly._

He stayed long enough to make sure her body was found in the little recess leading to the stableyard. Amidst the tumult of shouting and shrieking and running footsteps and demands for justice, he was hard put to it not to chuckle. Ashterah forgive him, but he_ did_ so love a reaction to his work.

Still under the Invisibility spell, he watched the Muggle police inspector force his way through the crowd, which had now taken into its collective head that the local Jews must have been responsible for the crime and were making dark threats. Edmund Reid, he believed this officer was called, a shrewd, tough professional beneath a bland exterior. A man that he himself could almost have respected—were he not a Muggle.

Reid cleared the passage of sightseers. "All right; stay out of it," he loudly told the crowd. "No-one's coming in here until the body's been examined by the divisional surgeon, and he's been sent for. Thicke, find the new man, Potter, get him to send telegrams to Abberline and Swanson to inform them of what's happened."

A man in the front wearing a greasy jacket screwed up his red face and yelled. "We already _know_ wot's happened! But the Jews are the men wot won't be blamed for nuffink!"

"I don't want to hear that any local Jews have been abused or threatened," Reid said sharply. "It'll be the worse for you if I do. Now get out, or I'll arrest the lot of you!"

Since several officers had joined Reid and his companion, the crowd dispersed, muttering and jeering. The windows of the houses on either side of the yard opened, scores of faces craning out, but the police ignored them. Reid thoroughly searched the ground, directing the other officers to help him and pick up the various items that had ended up scattered over the yard. He also covered the dead woman with a piece of sacking, being careful not to disturb her body in any way.

Behind the invisibility spell, the killer raised his eyebrows in reluctant admiration. The man knew his business, and no doubt about it.

At last, Reid stood up. "There's nothing more we can do at the moment. We'll need to wait until the surgeon arrives," he said to the officer he had addressed as Thicke, who had returned from his errand. "The East End ought to be a bit more mollified when word gets out that Searjant Johnny Upright's on the case, eh?"

"Don't know about all that, sir, but I always do my best," said Thicke.

The young policeman whom Reid had sent to dispatch the telegram returned, walking up to them both. "Johnny Upright, sir?" he asked, his brow furrowing.

"Ah—Potter," said Reid. "Harry Potter, correct? I forget that you're new to the CID. It's a nickname given to Thicke by a criminal in the dock. He's an incorruptible, you see."

"Very good, sir." Potter lapsed into silence.

"This is the third one, innit?" asked Thicke. "Or the fourth?" His voice was more refined and educated than the local East End Cockneys, but he still slipped into lower class accents from time to time.

"I should say this poor woman is the fourth victim at the very least, although not everyone in the division agrees with me. Far too many, at any rate." Reid sighed. "I don't know if we're going to find anything here. We'll question the locals to find out if anyone saw the murderer, but I can't help feeling that this will turn out the same as the others. There's nowhere that he could have gone without someone seeing him- and yet no-one will have seen him."

Thicke grunted in response.

"I don't know what we're going to do once the papers get hold of this," said the Inspector. "But we will need to take drastic action soon. Of what sort, I cannot say."

"What d'you suppose we'd do that we haven't already tried?" asked Thicke.

Reid was silent for a moment. "I have heard whispers and strange rumors of other police forces. Ones we have not yet contacted. They may have access to information that we don't, and methods that we cannot imagine."

"Sounds like magical rubbish to me," said Thicke.

"Odd that you should mention magic," said Reid thoughtfully.

"What d'you mean by that, sir?"

"I cannot say. I wonder, sometimes, if there are forces other than those which we fully understand—Potter?" Reid turned to the third officer. "Are you all right? Have you seen something?"

"No." The young man shook his head vigorously. "Only a cough." His bottle-green eyes glittered strangely in the faint light, but he said nothing more.

Thicke's face looked sickly pale in the near-darkness. "Sir, I am a firm believer that there are some things what mortal men weren't meant to know."

"Well—perhaps. But needs must, when the devil drives," said Reid. He straightened up. "Never mind for now. I think I hear the surgeon approaching. We'll get this poor woman to the morgue, and tomorrow morning, I'll speak to Inspector Abberline. He'll let Sir Warren know about this evil work that's been done tonight by a madman. Then—we will see."

The killer had now heard all he needed to hear. Chuckling inwardly—because one could never tell what sort of sounds might get past an Invisibility spell; they were far from flawless in that regard—he walked to the nearest Apparition point. It was in the abandoned graveyard he had passed with Mary Ann Longbottom a short time earlier. As he felt himself begin to Apparate away to his favorite hiding place, he felt the familiar rush of clarity in his thoughts. Reid had called him a madman, but he knew how logical he really was. Each step he took was part of a carefully laid plan. He would give them all a bit of time to consider, to think, after this murder. Things needed time to develop.

_Yes, I will wait a bit,_ he thought. _Let the hysteria in the populace build up. Let the demand for answers grow. Then, I will make my next move. It will take a great deal of pressure to bring about the right conditions to involve the Ministry of Magic in Muggle affairs. Another murder will most likely be necessary before action of the sort I want is taken. Then a letter sent to the police… yes, I think that will do the trick, sent at precisely the right time. _

The killer smiled. He would lure them all into his trap, and then, at last, he would capture the Right Honorable Draco Malfoy in his web.

Both revenge and justice, after all, were dishes best served cold.

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A/N: "Gay" in reference to women meant that they were prostitutes, not lesbians.

All the names of people involved in the Ripper cases, details, descriptions, etc., are historically correct, except when… they're not. Such as Harry Potter being on the force. 😉 Anti-semitism was extremely common at the time and led to many in the Jewish population being targeted.

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**Hannah's Prompt 2**

**Basic premise:** There's a serial killer on the loose in Britain, and they're killing wizards. The twist? The victims have all been killed non-magically.

**Must haves:** D/G romance. Strong suspicions that the killer is Muggle, and all the implications that come with that (e.g.: Upsurge of Pureblood propaganda? Coverage of the murders in Muggle media? Subsequent Muggle theories of magical existence in the world?).

**No-no's:** Gore/torture/etc. for the sake of it.

**Rating range:** Any.

**Bonus points:** Ginny as an Auror. Draco is working with Ginny on the case, though not necessarily an Auror himself. Extra bonus point: Draco throws a tantrum.


	2. Chapter 2

It is a part of special prudence never to do anything because one has an inclination to do it; but because it is one's duty, or is reasonable.

_Matthew Arnold, Notebooks (1868)_

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_September 25, 1888 _

_Ministry of Magic, London_

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Above Whitehall, it was an era when childhood was cherished—and babies lay dead in the streets of the slums, and the poor stepped over their bodies.

It was an era when more churches were built than ever before, and more religious charities founded- and one of every sixty houses in London was a brothel, and the output of pornography has never been exceeded.

It was an era of sacred womanhood- and ten percent of all the women in London were driven to prostitution at some point.

It was the age of the first wave of feminism—and no married woman could legally own property, or had any rights over her own children.

It was an age of reform- and five-year-old children were lowered into coal mines at dawn to labor in pitch blackness and mud until they were hauled up in buckets twelve hours later.

It was an era when the concept of public health was born, yet wallpaper was laden with arsenic, and bath buns colored with lead. When public sanitation was invented, and the average family lived above their own cesspool.

It was a time of staggering wealth and wretched poverty. The rich lived in priceless marble mansions in the West End, rode prancing pureblood horses in Hyde Park, and wore hand tailored silks and glittering jewels. And the poor lived twelve in a cramped room in the East End, letting out the dirty floor space to lodgers for a few extra pennies, whole families lying in one rickety bed under a single blanket because every piece of clothing had been pawned for bread, dead children remaining in that one room for days as their mothers and fathers scraped together pennies to bury them.

Paradoxes abounded. The class system might seem as stratified as ever, but Karl Marx had published two books of _Das Capital, _and socialists rioted in Trafalgar Square_. _The sun might never set on the British Empire, but on the day when our story begins, Mohandas Gandhi had just arrived at the University of London to study law. Women were judged as worthless if they didn't marry and stay at home, but there were more jobs and professions open to female workers than ever before, and they fought for the vote in the first wave of feminism.

In short, it was an age of contrasts. The brightest ideals, the bleakest realities; the most tender kindnesses, the most vicious cruelties, progress and regress all mixed together, ethics and morals as muddled as a pea-soup fog. Above all, it was an age of change, especially as it drew near its end. Change was in the coal dust-laden air.

Or at least, such was the case in Muggle Victorian London.

Because beneath Whitehall, inside the Ministry of Magic, everything was as it had always been and as it would always be, forever and ever, amen to Ashterah. Both upstairs and down, the year was 1888. But below, it could just have easily have been 1788, 1588, or more or less any year from the Stone Age to the present. The wizarding world changed seldom, and with great reluctance.

The Ministry of Magic was still commonly referred to as "the new location." Even though the Druids had sacrificed on the banks of the Thames and the Wizards' Council had used exactly the same location since 1701, a few walls had been painted, the corridors refurbished, and the desks spruced up. Certain Muggle touches of the era always seemed to have a way of making their way down here, too. That was enough to warrant the title.

The Right Honorable Draco Malfoy, third son of House Malfoy, sat at a desk in an office at the back of the cluttered collection of cubicles that served as Auror Headquarters on the second floor of the Ministry. Not quite an Auror, not quite a visitor; a specialist, perhaps, but nobody really seemed to be sure of what Draco Malfoy was, or which part he played. Himself least of all.

The Malfoys had their own permanent space in the department because of some sort of feudal right of possession over the land on which the original wizarding council was built. An office had been opened and cleaned, and Draco now worked in it. Gloomy and dark, it nonetheless suited him rather well. He had enough space for his own files and a tiny potions and poisons lab, complete with testing equipment.

The hour had just struck seven, and nearly everyone else had already gone home hours before. Ministry employees did not work the twelve-hour days of Muggle clerks and men of business. There had been many details to clear away in the latest poisoning case which Draco had just finished, however, and he was nothing if not thorough. He stayed until he had completed the case to his own satisfaction, trying not to think about the generations of Malfoys who were doubtless turning in their graves at the thought of one of their own doing_ work_. It wasn't actual work, of course, he always assured himself, but rather an intense hobby, like the studies of a gentleman scientist.

At any rate, it was the fault of his great-uncle Abraxas for sending him to the Ministry in the first place. But at the memory of his great-uncle, Draco had thoughts he did not wish to entertain. He rose from the desk for a stretch and a bit of a walk.

The headquarters looked the same as always—the cubicles, the dark wood-paneled walls, the pictures of known Dark wizards, maps, clippings from the Daily Prophet—and then, some from other papers he did not recognize. He walked out into the larger room, peering at the clippings pinned to a board, and saw that they were from Muggle papers. The _Sunderland Echo_, the _Pall Mall Gazette_, the _Daily News_. His eyes skimmed over the headlines, and his frown deepened. _Attempted Murder At Bow. __The Horrible Outrage in Whitechapel: __The authorities of the London Hospital yesterday morning informed the East Middlesex coroner of the death in that institution of Emma E. Smith, aged 45, a widow, lately living in George-street, Spitalfields. __Murder in Whitechapel, Martha Tabram Unfortunate Victim. Tragedy in Whitechapel: Polly Nichols Stabbed in 39 Places. The East End Horror Grows: Annie Chapman Butchered. _ Draco shook his head and stopped reading, although there were many more clippings. Dreadful stories, to be sure, and he pitied the poor women who had been this unknown murderer's victims, but it all seemed to be a purely Muggle matter. He really could not imagine why any records related to these crimes should be pinned to a board in the Headquarters. Still, it was no business of his.

He had business of his own, now, or rather, the end of one.

He toyed with the letter in the pocket of his robes, the one that he had not put away from him since receiving it a week earlier. The letter from his great-uncle Abraxas.

Slowly, Draco walked back into his own little office and to the opposite wall, looked out the window, and saw the magical view, adjusted for wizards, of course. Which meant that there was precious little to be seen. For a fleeting moment, he almost wished that he could see the streets of Muggle London, that other world from which his own was walled off. The magical windows most decidedly did not work in that manner, however. He might have lifted the veil with a spell… But then he would need to admit that he actually wished to see what the wizard world was walled off from. And such a heretical thought could not be admitted by the Right Honorable Draco Malfoy, third son of House Malfoy, and suddenly its unexpected, unlooked-for, frankly unwanted heir.

The parchment seemed to be burning a hole in his pocket. The one that promised changes he was not so sure he wanted to undergo.

No. He had suspected that they would come about for a long time. He must live up to his responsibilities. Duty was all. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, the same scents of wood and smoke and decaying paper, reminding him that the wizarding world would surely always be the same as it had been and was now. Everything was the same. And that was good. It must be good.

But he couldn't help thinking that it was all a bit…_ stale_.

As he leaned against the window, faint voices and footsteps began to drift to his ears.

He knew those voices without turning round. Dennis and Colin Creevey, who both worked in the department. The eagerness in their voices, especially the younger of the two, the rumbustiousness in their scampering footsteps, all impossible to mistake. Few irritations which the world had to offer, thought Draco, could be quite as tedious as the excessive enthusiasm of the Creevey brothers.

"There are either three or four as of right now," Dennis was saying in his piping voice. "But they're not quite sure. I mean, how could you ever really be sure? What do you think, Colly?"

"I'm sure I don't know," said Colin Creevey.

"Oh, come on, Colly; do be a good sport—"

"Dennis, I think that we really might just as well talk about something else."

At least the elder Creevey was being a tad more circumspect than usual, whatever it was that the two were discussing. Draco saw their vague smudged outlines reflected in the window now as the pair rounded a corner and drew nearer.

"But it's so interesting! I've been following all the Muggle papers," Dennis persisted.

"Yes, I'm sure you have."

"Come on. Just a clue—"

"No," Colin said firmly. His footsteps paused. "Oh—bother. I've forgotten it. Hold up a moment, all right?" Colin's footsteps walked away, and the other, lighter pattered forward, pausing at the door to Draco's office.

Draco sighed and turned round, seeing Dennis Creevey's eager face sharpen into focus, all frazzled blond hair and horsy teeth.

"I say, Malfoy, have you heard the latest?" he asked in annoyingly chipper tones, leaning against the doorframe as if ready to bolt forward at any second.

For a horrible second, Draco was sure that the younger Creevey was referring to the news that occupied his own mind, to the information contained in the letter from Abraxas Malfoy. It was impossible that either Creevey could know. He himself had told no-one. But his great-uncle wasn't really capable of discretion, and Draco had received the letter a full week earlier. The gods alone knew what Abraxas Malfoy might have let slip, or to whom. The wizarding world in London was insular and closed; therefore, it was filled with gossip, and the juiciest pieces thereof made the rounds with lightning speed.

_Does the entire department know? For that matter, does the entire Ministry know? Has every witch and wizard in London heard about it by now? _Draco could feel himself growing panicky, and he took a long, deep breath before replying to Dennis.

Creevey couldn't possibly know. His face would hold a different expression if he did, or his voice would hold a subtly different tone, not simply his normal manic enthusiasm, but something more knowing, a mixture of sympathy and faint envy. Something, at least. And the younger man showed none of this. He clearly knew nothing. Draco let out the breath he had been holding.

"I haven't the faintest idea what you mean," he said lightly.

"I mean, about _him," _said Dennis_._ "The latest updates, you know!"

"I'm afraid that I am not fortunate enough to know to whom you are referring." He was starting to suspect that he had more of an idea that he would have liked to have had.

"Oh, you know. The Whitechapel killer!"

_I was right_, thought Draco.

At that moment, a hand appeared at the edge of the doorframe, its forefinger crooking backwards. Dennis gave a disappointed sigh and thankfully disappeared.

"Really, Dennis; I've got to speak to Malfoy alone."

"But—"

"Off with you now. We'll talk later."

Draco had never believed that he'd be particularly happy to see Colin Creevey, but in comparison with his brother, he was quite restrained that day. _But why on earth would he need, or want, to speak with me alone? We've scarcely exchanged a dozen words in the past three months, if that many. _

He stepped through the doorway and into the office, and Draco winced at what he saw.

Colin Creevey was a popinjay, which would be all right if his tastes of clothing consistently tended in the wizarding direction. Today, however, they most decidedly did not. Draco surveyed the other man head to toe in a way that he knew left Creevey particularly flustered. At the moment, he didn't much care.

"Creevey, why on earth have you come to the Ministry dressed in such a manner?"

Colin flushed slightly as Draco's eyes went over each detail of the objectionable outfit.

He was dressed like a Muggle in the height of a casual middle-class fashion of the day. A dark sack coat with a slim fit and a seamed waist, twill waistcoat and gold watch chain showing beneath, a plain white shirt, detachable white high stand collar and cuffs, tweed trousers, a four in hand tie, and in his other hand, a Homburg hat of stiff felt.

More and more wizards were dressing this way, including many who ought to know better, and Draco had to deal with them. Another unpleasant necessity when working at the Ministry. His own robes were the same that the Malfoys had worn when his great-uncle was a boy and mad King George sat upon the Muggle throne. And, he had no doubt, they were the same as the ones that would be worn a hundred years hence. Wizarding fashions did not change quickly, or often.

"You know, Malfoy, I'm going out to work with Muggles and can't wear robes," said Colin.

Draco raised one eyebrow. "A rather large part of our primary purpose is supposed to be concealment from the knowledge of Muggles."

"Well, yes, but this is quite important. And we're using the best Concealment spells, 'proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle' sort, you know."

"In which case are you involved?" asked Draco.

"We're investigating the mysterious deaths of a number of aspidistras."

"Aspidistras," Draco said dubiously. "If I'm not much mistaken, which I rarely am, you're referring to a plant."

"Yes, but the aspidistra can't be killed," said Colin eagerly, clearly ready to sink his teeth into the problem. "That's why it's so popular in London homes. It survives gas fumes, coal dust—"

"That's all quite interesting, but—" Draco tried to interrupt.

"Sulfuric acid in the air, lack of oxygen from gaslighting—"

"Fascinating, I'm sure, but I don't see why we should be involved in—"

"Arsenic seeping out of the wallpaper, lead paint in children's toys, which the infants generally chew on—"

Draco brought his hand down on the desk. "Creevey, if there is a point, I beg you to reach it!"

"Sorry. I'm not really supposed to discuss it with anybody just yet." Colin looked down and blushed slightly.

The most effective method of broadcasting news, thought Draco, would undoubtedly be to impart it to Colin Creevey and then swear him to secrecy.

"But, er, Muggles are so fascinating, don't you think?" Colin was asking now.

"No," said Draco, quite sure that he was telling the truth. "At any rate, why on earth would the Ministry be involved with such Muggle trivia?"

"I think… I think that sometimes it's our duty," said Colin earnestly. "We've got a responsibility to reach outside of the wizarding world when Muggles really need our help. It's a duty that I believe we can't shirk."

Duty. The letter in his pocket. The responsibility thrust on him that he ought to welcome, but had a terrible, traitorous desire to reject.

Because Colin had reminded him of all of it, Draco said what he knew he should not.

"Muggle murders are tedious," he snapped. "Those of aspidistras and otherwise."

Colin's round brown eyes widened.

Immediately, Draco was ashamed. Such speech, such behavior was beneath him. He ought to have remembered that Dennis and Colin Creevey had begun the conversation, such as it was, by referring to the brutal murders of a number of Muggles.

It was not the other man's fault, the letter, the shifting expectations in his life. And perhaps most of all, Draco's own vague sense of shame for successfully contributing to the solution of several criminal cases involving various poisons. He would have been happier to be an utter failure at this job at the Ministry in which he was stuck, but he was not. To be less than happy about success, however modest, was a painful feeling, like biting into one of those Muggle sausages that undoubtedly included dead rats.

"Sorry," said Draco in a clipped voice.

The other man still looked dejected.

'I say, Creevey; really, I do apologize," said Draco in slightly gentler tones.

"It's perfectly all right," said Colin. "I've got a letter for you, Malfoy." He held out the rolled parchment.

"Thank you," said Draco, taking the parchment. "Is there anything else?"

"No. Well, I'd better get on with the assignment, then," Creevey said awkwardly. "My knife's so nice and sharp I want to get to work right away, and all that."

Draco sighed inwardly. In his private opinion, Creevey had been out of school more than long enough to have ceased to use such schoolboy phrases.

As Creevey made his exit, Draco he reached for the parchment, wondering what on earth could possibly be happening now. Probably some unbearably tedious memorandum about the permitted length of dinner breaks, or something. But no; that wasn't likely. Personal letter or memorandum delivery was unusual anywhere in the Ministry. All correspondence was normally carried by owl. The only exception would be if the sender did not wish a record of the exchange to exist in the owl post system. _Although when either Creevey is involved, one might as well hire a signboard man to stand in Trafalgar Square… _

His eyes widened slightly when he saw the distinctive watermark belonging to the Minister for Magic. Draco had had very little to do with Faris Spavin in the past few months, which was exactly as he preferred.

With a strange feeling that he could not place as either dread, apprehension, or excitement, he unrolled the parchment and began to read.

_My dear Malfoy, _

He grimaced. It was a particular affectation on the part of Minister Faris Spavin to address all Ministry officials and employees, whoever they might be, by surname only. More democratic, or some such rot.

_I am aware that you are currently engaged in the Bleak house-elf poisoning case, but I must request your presence in my office immediately upon the receipt of this letter. Your assistance is urgently required on a new case of utmost importance. Please note that this is an extremely delicate matter, owing to the persons and situations involved. While we are rarely called upon to coordinate with Muggle institutions, it appears is such is now the case. I will further clarify the details upon our meeting. _

_I remain, sir, yr obedient servant, _

_Minister Faris Spavin_

Draco let the parchment drop. _Muggle institutions!_

He stalked down the corridor, a mixture of emotions whirling in his mind, none of which he could unentangle. He decided to concentrate on the sheer insult of being expected to work with Muggles in any context.

As if it weren't already bad enough to be forced to report to work here in the first place, and then to gain entrance by a set of the new underground public toilets. There were rumors that the entrances would soon be connected with the Floo network; Draco had little hope that it would happen anytime soon. Oh, no; all of that wasn't nearly insulting enough. He was going to be forced to have_ something_ to do with Muggles. His pale face had grown dark as a thunderstorm by the time he had reached the elevator.

"Fifth floor," he snapped to the service-elf, who cast him a put-upon look.

"Yo' must wait, Master Malfoy, for awl passengers to arrive," the elf said in a flat voice.

"What other passenger could there possibly be?" asked Draco, reaching for the button to the fifth floor. The elf shooed him away, a shiny brass badge on his neat mulberry-colored uniform winking in the light as he did so. _Percival Praiseworthy,_ the incised gothic letters read.

"Ai'll perform that duty, Master Malfoy," the elf intoned. Every wrinkle on his face turned down into an even deeper frown.

Draco supposed that he ought to keep in mind how jealous these service-elves were of their privileges. There were rumours that their duties would eventually be replaced by either mechanical works or spells, and the elves constantly threatened to break out in revolt as a response. Only the month before, a group of elves on the sixth floor had kept all the windows in the building permanently showing fields of molten lava for three entire days after the heating systems were fixed without their input by using_ Calorum_ spells.

Footsteps pattered down the corridor towards the elevator. Draco devoutly hoped that Colin Creevey was not about to come round the corner. And he did not, but the sight of the second passenger made Draco wish that he had.

Miss Ginevra Weasley was hurrying breathlessly through the doors, which the elf Praiseworthy tapped shut behind her.

"Fifth floor, please, Praiseworthy," she said, and the elf smiled, which Draco would not have thought possible, given his face.


	3. Chapter 3

Upper-class Victorians feared an overabundance of passion, believing it only complicated matters and, more dangerously, led to thoughts of unrealistic liaisons between persons of unequal social stations.  
_― __Jerrold M. Packard, __Victoria's Daughters_

* * *

Her back was still to Draco, and he stared at the coils of auburn hair showing beneath her neat hat. He had certainly heard that she was here, but he had never before seen her at the Ministry. In fact, he had not seen her at all since that last week before he graduated Hogwarts—which was a time that he would rather forget. Her movements were quick and neat as ever. She had been one of the few girls who refused to ride sidesaddle for Quidditch games at school, and he saw the same bold grace in her now.

By the time Ginevra Weasley turned round, Draco had regained the cool composure that was bred into the Malfoy bones.

"Miss Weasley," he said, inclining his head. "How very pleasant to meet you again."

He could imagine the sort of reply she wished to make. _Pleasant?_ _I can't say that I feel the same, Malfoy!_ Or perhaps, _Although I must say that your appearance has vastly improved since the last occasion on which I saw you. I believe that you were screaming like a first-year girl as you ran down a corridor, pursued by the bat-bogeys that I unleashed upon you?_ Or even… _I'm surprised that you're still in the Ministry. I would have thought that you should seize the first opportunity to skive off to that crumbling manor of yours, since your great-uncle has handed you the perfect excuse to give notice here. _

No. Weasley couldn't possibly know anything about that letter. He really needed to stop imagining that everyone knew, or, indeed, that anyone knew.

"Likewise, I'm sure," she replied in a cool voice and with a slight nod that sent the feather on her hat dancing. Then she turned slightly away to study the elevator wall as if the flocked red velveteen wallpaper were of the most interesting design she had ever seen, so he eyed the rest of her outfit.

Ginevra Weasley was dressed in a Muggle style, but her choices were a bit subversive, a bit more associated with Bohemians and Bloomsbury rather than a middle class fashion plate. She wore a spencer jacket of lavender-colored wool over a high-necked cream shirtwaist, a soft, draped grey skirt with no hint of a bustle ending just above her leather boots. A plate hat with a gray ostrich feather sat at a jaunty angle on her head. A black jet charm glittered at her neck and two jet rings on her fingers, gypsy-like hoops of jet winking in her ears. Draco could not quite stop the fleeting thought that she looked dashed attractive in all of it.

She cast a sideways look at him from her huge golden eyes, and Draco realized that he had been looking just a bit too long—and also that she had likely been watching him from the start as well.

The elevator came to a halt, and Draco breathed a silent sigh of relief. Being cooped up with Ginevra Weasley in such a small space put him on edge in some way he could not define. Maybe it was that she seemed to take up so _much_ space, much more than her small, trim figure should be able to do. But now they had reached the fifth floor, the elevator doors would open, and the deliciously uncomfortable experience of standing in a small elevator with her would be over.

Except that the doors did not open at all. And… Draco craned his neck upwards.

There was a distinct shrieking and flapping sound coming from above the ceiling, in the elevator shaft.

His previous feeling that the evening was not going well now deepened into a conviction.

"So," he said to her, cudgeling his brain for something to say. "I've heard that you're working in the Missing Persons division."

"Yes," agreed Weasley.

"Doing quite well, I hope?"

"Quite." She paused, during which time he would be willing to swear in front of the Wizengamot that she was savoring his discomfiture. "And now, it seems as if I'll be working with you on this case."

_What case?_ He longed to ask. He would sooner have pierced the magical veil surrounding wizarding London and walked home through a Muggle pea-soup fog in ankle-deep mud composed of mingled horse dung and coal tar. Well, _almost. _Weasley clearly knew something that he himself did not, which was a state of affairs which could not be allowed to continue.

"Ah, yes, this case," he agreed. "It presents some points of interest, doesn't it?"

"I'd say that it certainly does," she said, a not-quite-smile on her lips that would have made the Sphinx green with envy.

"Exceedingly fascinating details," he went on.

"I'd quite agree."

Was she_ trying_ to drive him mad? Yes, most likely she was, he decided. She was clearly working in conspiracy with the elevator, which showed no signs of moving.

"I can't quite seem to recall a few of the main aspects," he fumbled. "Perhaps you'd care to go over them again…?"

She favored him with a long, cool look "If it pleases you to go fishing, Malfoy, then I can point you to Billingsgate," she said.

Draco turned on the elf. "Can't you get this elevator in motion, Praiseworthy?" he asked through gritted teeth.

The elf shrugged. "Bat-bogeys in th' works, again, I fear, as is their habit every Thursday at seven-twenty o' th' clock sharp."

Draco wondered what particular sins he had committed to bring down the wrath of Asherah upon his long-suffering head. The universe itself seemed to be conspiring against him. And he was sure that Ginevra Weasley's face wore a smirk.

"Bat-bogeys?" His voice rose. "Can't the Ministry even keep common bat-bogeys out of the elevator shaft? I've an important meeting to attend!"

Praiseworthy regarded him balefully. "Yo' may prate o'er y'or wrongs until Doomsday, Master Malfoy. But ole yo'r complaints will be useless. Th' bat-bogeys go all areawnd th' elevator shafts till they're fair tired o' th' activity. No rushin' 'em."

The harder he pressed the elf, the more indecipherable his Lancashire accent seemed to become. Draco gave it up as a bad job.

"What a shame. I _do_ seem to recall that you're far from fond of bat-bogeys, Malfoy," Ginny said, her voice sweet as cream pouring from a jug.

"I commend you on your excellent memory, Miss Weasley," Draco said through gritted teeth. For Baal's sake, the bat-bogey incident had happened seven years earlier! And the attack had been entirely unprovoked. _Well…_ Rather guiltily, Draco remembered the nastiest verse he had written to _Weasley Is Our King_ that year, a song he was now not entirely proud of. Speculation on Ronald Weasley's activities with goats had been involved, if he remembered correctly. But then again, he'd spelled the lyrics of that particular verse to be inaudible to girls. It was Weasley's own fault if she'd found out what they were. _Trust a Weasley to keep such unfair tally of a schoolboy prank! _

Through some miracle, the elevator chose that moment to lurch to the fifth floor, suppressing whatever retort Draco would have made. The elf waved the doors open.

"Well, let's see what the Minister wants," said Ginevra, looking a bit abashed.

"You mean you don't know all the details of the case?" Draco asked innocently.

"Er…" She glanced down at her boots.

Draco suppressed a smirk of his own. He'd suspected all along that Weasley didn't know as much as she wanted him to think.

Minister Faris Spavin was an elflike little man with a head as perfectly round as a ball, his cherubic face beaming. He bounced from his chair at the round conference table to greet them both, spreading his chubby pink hands.

"You're both here! How perfectly lovely. Lovely to see you here, yes, absolutely a treat. I'm sure that we'll do so well with your help, Mr. Malfoy, Miss Weasley. I place my _perfect_ confidence in you; my doubts are _entirely_ quelled!"

Draco wonders if Spavin was beginning to go a bit dotty. After all, he was one hundred and thirty-two years old. On the other hand, his great-uncle Abraxas was nearly the same age and still sharp as a tack.

"Yes, we're all going to have a delightful time, and so terribly productive," the Minister went on, ushering Draco and Ginevra to seats on either side of himself. "I'm sure that you'll both agree with me once you know all the details, as will our, ah, honored associate, who ought to arrive very shortly. If the coordination can be worked out, of course… Tea? Black, green, or lemon Meyer?"

Ginny nodded, and the teapot somehow understood her request and poured steaming Earl Grey tea into her china cup. Draco could smell the bergamot from where he was sitting, and she could also see that she had beckoned to the cream jug to pour a bit into her cup before that_._ She smiled at the chinaware, showing a hint of perfect white teethbeneath very full pink lips. Not that Draco was noticing anything of that sort, of course. _I ought to have known that she'd be cream-in-first,_ thought Draco with something less than perfect charity. _How middle-class. _

"And you, Mr. Malfoy?" The Minister turned to him.

"Ah… India black will be quite all right, two lumps of sugar," said Draco, wondering how to persuade Spavin to at least begin to get to the point, if this unknown associate was really going to join them as soon as all that. "But shouldn't we perhaps begin to discuss—"

"A cucumber sandwich?" Spavin offered him a plate.

"Not just yet, thank you."

"Yes, yes, you're right; of course," said the Minister. "We ought to wait to pass round the refreshments until our Muggle compatriot arrives."

Draco almost choked on his tea.

"Cough drop, Malfoy?" Ginevra asked sweetly from Spavin's other side.

"Thank you, Weasley, but no." Draco hesitated, unwilling to admit ignorance of any kind in front of Ginevra Weasley but seeing no alternative. He turned to the Minister. "I'm afraid that I don't quite understand what this is all about, sir." Oh, how it grated on him to be obliged to address that low-born Faris Spavin as 'sir.'

"I'd like to know as well," said Ginevra, apparently taking pity on him.

"Ah, yes," said Spavin. "Well, the short of it is, we're working with a branch of Muggle government, you might say, or at least the matter has not been completely decided yet, but I should say that the decision shall be in the affirmative. And your help would be most welcome, Miss Weasley… Mr. Malfoy." He cleared his throat, which was more than enough time for Draco to fume.

The Ministry of Magic almost never worked with any branch of Muggle government. They had—or at least, they ought to have had- learned their lesson from the incidents involving Evangeline Orpington, who had been the Minister from 1849 to 1855. A close friend to the younger Queen Victoria, Orpington had intervened illegally in the Muggle Crimean War. The results had been disastrous. Her successor, Priscilla Dupont, had then caused serious trouble through her harassment of Lord Palmerston. It all served to bolster the firm Malfoy conviction that Muggles and wizards did not mix. And then, of course, there was the additional fact that even if the Ministry were to continue to involve themselves with Muggle affairs, a Malfoy would not become entangled in such a low-class endeavour.

"But who?" asked Ginevra. "And why?"

Spavin waved a hand in the air. "It's most unusual, which I do entirely realize. But, well, there are some very good reasons. I do apologize for not offering full information to you both far earlier, but I was truly hoping to avoid this situation. I've only just learned the most pertinent facts of the case- which we'll discuss as soon as my learned Muggle compatriot arrives."

"But who is he?" asked Ginevra.

"Ah—" The Minister's gaze drifted somewhere far above the table. "A most respectable sort of man. A man whom one wouldn't be embarrassed to know socially, I'm quite sure—I imagine you'll completely agree, Mr. Malfoy."

The door flew open.

"Pleased to announce Sir Charles Warren, Major in the British Army, Chief Commissioner of the Muggle Metropolitan Police Force!" bellowed a squat protocol-elf in the doorway.

Draco stared.

He almost never even shared a room with any member of the non-magical population. In plain fact, he had no need to. He lived and moved exclusively in the wizarding world of London, with only the rarest exceptions. In the Ministry, he had worked with unraveling cases related to poisoning cases only in wizarding families. All of the circles in which he moved were the same. None of the ladies in society or the men at his clubs had anything to do with Muggles—well, as long as one excluded their personal tastes; Draco knew more than one wizard who would only amuse himself with Muggle partners in high class brothels, whether male or female. Draco, however, was not among them. He had no idea when the last time was that he was so close to a Muggle.

But now, he was.

And his first, rather traitorous thought was that if it weren't for the distinctly dazed look on this man's face, and for the clothing, he himself would not have guessed.

The Muggle-ness of Sir Charles Warren did not proclaim itself on his face or in his bearing. He was of medium height, with glossy brown hair combed across his brow. He had a weary-looking face with slightly sagging eyelids, a drooping handlebar mustache, oddly sad-looking brown eyes, but also an essential air of hardness about the man. A rigid man, Draco thought, upright and logical, and of high status in the Muggle world, although not in the uppermost economic class. He would have known that this man had a title without having been told, but he felt that it was of recent origin. He had the background of the gentry. How Draco knew any of this, he could not have said; but such knowledge was bred into the bones of his type and class, applying to both wizards and Muggles.

As soon as the man caught sight of the office and everything and everyone in it, Draco realized something else. Whatever else Warren might or might not know, he'd had no idea that the wizarding world existed until a very short time prior. _Less than twenty-four hours, I'd wager,_ thought Draco. _Now, why is that? Why was he only just now informed? Or was he the one who sought us out?_

"Ah, welcome, Commissioner," said the Minister, continuing to beam. "How very pleasant to see you. I believe that we've rarely had a Muggle in this room before! Not since William the Conqueror insisted on meeting the Wizarding Council, I believe. And before that, it must have been Ug, Chief of the Gibraltar Neanderthals, which must have been, oh, let me see… 35,000 B.C.E., I believe."

Warren blinked, his composure clearly a bit shaken. Draco found himself exchanging glances with Ginevra at his side. _For all of Spavin's jolly ways, he's trying to establish dominance here. _She seemed to have grasped this instantly as well. _Weasley was always quite a clever girl at school. I suppose she still is_, he thought grudgingly.

"Quite an honor to be invited, of course," said Warren. His voice was firm and deep. "Most appreciated, Minister." He looked at Draco and Ginevra.

"Let me introduce two of my most trusted workers," said Spavin. "Mr. Malfoy, poisons expert. Miss Weasley, rising star of the Missing Persons department."

All nodded and exchanged a few desultory words, and Draco could see that this Muggle police commissioner did not know quite what to make of them. In Weasley's case, that must be because Muggles did not believe that women ought to occupy any role in a Ministry workplace except for that of secretary and typist, and even that job had only been opened to the gentler sex for the past decade. Ginevra did not have the air of a typing-girl, nor a typewriter to hand, so Warren likely had no idea what she was supposed to be doing here.

In Draco's own case, he knew from his limited experience of Muggles that the chief Commissioner did not know how to place him in a social hierarchy. He had been introduced without any sort of title, which the wizarding aristocracy did not use in any case. But even before he had moved a muscle or spoken a word, he knew he had the indefinable air that came with ten thousand years of pureblood breeding.

"Tea?" asked the Minister.

"Ah, of course. How very kind. Thank you," said Warren, and his eyebrows shot up to almost meet his hairline when the teapot obediently filled a cup on its own. He took the cup between thumb and forefinger as if handling a bomb that might go off at any second. "I realize, of course, that this is all highly unusual—this sort of coordination—but I believe that it is necessary for our departments to work together at this point."

"Ah, yes, most irregular , but extraordinary circumstances alter cases, and all that," said the Minister. "Raspberry scone? Oh—I'd avoid the Cockroach Cluster, if I were you."

Draco realized that he was becoming amused. Perhaps there was at least some sport to be had in this ridiculous situation. It was one which could not continue past the initial meeting, of course; endless generations of Malfoys would revolve in their graves like spitted game birds if he actually did any sort of work alongside Muggles. But there could be no harm in allowing the next half hour to play itself out before his inevitable refusal.

"Perhaps not just now," said Warren, setting his cup on the table with a decisive tap. "Minister. I'm sure you're quite a busy man, so I'd rather like to get to the point."

"I'm quite in favor of that strategy, myself," said Spavin, looking vaguer than ever.

"I will not take up much of your time. I simply wish to know if you are willing to aid us with the case."

"Mmmmm…" Spavin stirred his tea.

Draco was beginning to realize that the idea for Muggle and wizarding policing forces to work together had not originated with the Ministry of Magic. _Now, I wonder what that may mean? _

"I do assure you, sir, that Minister Gascoyne-Cecil has been fully informed," Warren added.

Draco wondered if the statement held just a hint of a threat.

"Yes, I'm quite aware of that," said Spavin.

Warren took a long sip of tea and sat forward in his chair.

"In short, the Whitechapel ward of London has seen four murders since April which have seemed to be linked. There are many common features in method, means, victims, and so forth, particularly in the last two. We've suspected a common killer since at least last month, I should say. However…" He hesitated for such a long time that Draco could not help asking an obvious question.

"I'm afraid that I do not understand why you should be seeking our help now," said Draco. "And why mine, in particular? My specialty is the area of poisons used only in the wizarding world."

Warren shot him an odd look. Draco had a feeling that the chain of command at the Muggle police department did not include lesser employees speaking up so readily. And yet his own manner of speaking, the accent from which the speech of the British royal family had originally been derived, must have confused the commissioner still further. _What a terrible shame, _h_e _thought dryly. _Malfoys don't do well with chains of command, which he might as well know now. _

'I believe you told me that something has changed, Warren," said Spavin hurriedly, as if unwilling to allow something about the line of that conversation to continue.

"Yes. Yes, indeed, it has. We've received a letter today, in the morning. It was sent directly to the Metropolitan Police Headquarters, but we're going to put it about that it was sent to the Central News Agency instead. I'd prefer for nothing to be released to the public at all, but far too much information about the letter has already circulated in the department, you see—it's so dreadfully difficult to keep gossip down, not that I have not tried. Minister Spavin was kind enough to peruse this missive. He states that he believes that there are aspects which seem to indicate that this author had some knowledge of wizarding traditions," said Warren. He spoke stiffly, but then, thought Draco, it was difficult to imagine him saying or doing anything that did not seem as if he had a steel ramrod up his spine. "We plan to deliberately give the impression that the Metropolitan Police believe this letter to be a forgery on the part of reporters at the Central News Agency. However, we know that this is not the case."

Warren put a large manila envelope on the table. "We're referring to it as the 'Dear Boss' letter. I thought perhaps that each of you might read—ah—unless Miss Weasley would prefer to… not suitable for a lady's eyes, perhaps…" He grimaced, clearly quite uncomfortable with Weasley's inclusion in the matter. Draco struggled not to laugh.

"It'll do quite well, thank you," said Spavin, waving a wand over the letter. _"Revelo_!"

The page appeared projected at the near end of the table, red letters shimmering in the air. Warren jumped back slightly. Draco began to read.

_The Boss, Metropolitan Police Department, London, City_

_Dear Boss,_

_I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they wont fix me just yet. I have laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track. That joke about Leather Apron gave me real fits. I am down on whores and I shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled. Grand work the last job was. I gave the lady no time to squeal._

_How can they catch me now. I love my work and want to start again. You will soon hear of me with my funny little games. I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to write with but it went thick like glue and I cant use it. Red ink is fit enough I hope ha ha. The next job I do I shall clip the ladys ears off and send to the police officers just for jolly wouldn't you. Keep this letter back till I do a bit more work, then give it out straight._

_My knife's so nice and sharp I want to get to work right away if I get a chance._

_Good Luck._

_Yours truly_

_Jack the Ripper_

_Dont mind me giving the trade name. Wasnt good enough to post this before I got all the red ink off my hands curse it No luck yet. They say I'm a doctor now. ha ha. You all will learn soon enough what I really am. Hocus pocus, abracadabra, what a laugh on your Muggle world!_

A chill swept up Draco's spine.

"The unfamiliar word 'Muggle' was what led me to confer with the Home Secretary. It was a word which he had heard, and he shared his limited knowledge of the existence of the wizarding world with me. I believe that there must be additional clues in this letter." said Warren. He looked about the table. "Do any of you agree?"

"Yes," said Draco. "It's not just the use of the word 'Muggle.'" He turned to Warren and addressed him directly for the first time. "I don't know to what extent the Home Secretary was aware of the word's meaning, but you have been fully briefed by Minister Spavin… sir?" _How astonishing, _he thought. _I failed to burst into flames. _

"Yes, Mr. Malfoy," said Warren. "Non-magic folk, and all that."

"Many people might write that much without knowing anything more. I've heard that the word's whispered a fair amount in some circles. But some of the phrases… 'Proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle.' That's a wizarding cant term for finding a specific spell or sort of magic that is exactly right to the job at hand."

"And that's not all," piped up Ginny Weasley. "The phrase that especially struck me was, ' My knife's so nice and sharp I want to get to work right away if I get a chance.'

For the first time, Warren turned to her. Draco could see a lifetime of tradition in his eyes, of belief that women were weak beings to be protected and cherished and petted, sheltered from all knowledge of the outside world which only men could handle. But that prejudice warred with the man's understanding of the value of the information that Weasley could give. Draco was hard put to it not to gasp in surprise when the new emotion clearly won. An unwelcome thought struck him. Would a wizard put aside a deeply held prejudice so easily, even in such a situation?

"Could you further explain what you mean, Miss Weasley?" he asked.

"It's a phrase that has been used at Hogwarts for at least a hundred years," she explained. "It refers to a students' saying, regarding their willingness to peg away at a problem outside of class hours."

The commissioner's eyes narrowed. "Miss Weasley, do you mean that only a former student of the school, er, Hogwarts, would understand this?"

"Not necessarily," said Ginny. "It's very much passed into general wizarding sayings." She glanced at Draco as if for support, and he nodded.

"it's not that we believe that this 'Jack the Ripper' fellow actually is a wizard, of course," Spavin quickly added. "Only that he's extremely familiar with wizarding speech."

"How exactly can we be so sure of that?" asked Warren.

"There's no trace of wizarding essence at any of the crime scenes," said Spavin. "It's far more likely, I believe, that the killer is a Muggle trying to frame wizards or degrade the wizarding world in some way. Most unpleasant." He wrinkled his nose, which lent him a distinct resemblance to a white rabbit with tufts of fur all over his head.

Warren looked far from convinced, but he was clearly putting aside any doubts he might have for the moment. "Minister Spavin, do you believe that you can see your way clear to help us with this matter?"

"Why, we'd_ love _to be helpful," said the Minister. "I'm sure that Miss Weasley and Mr. Malfoy will do anything they can." He did not follow up that statement with anything more, however, and they all sat in an awkward silence for at least a minute.

"Minister, I am a man who believes in order," said Warren. "This maniac, this monster, is destroying the order of our fair city. I will do whatever I must to restore that order. If you believe that you may help us, then I humbly accept that help on behalf of Her Majesty's Metropolitan Police force."

Spavin coughed. "Of course, of course. Shall I send my staff to the police station in the morning?"

_Staff!_ It was all that Draco could do to keep from leaping to his feet and striding out of the room in a fit of temper, proclaiming something about the honor and respect due to the ancient Malfoy name, or some such rot.

"I should appreciate it greatly if they could appear at the Metropolitan Police Station at nine o 'clock sharp," said Warren. "Ask for Inspector Edmund Reid. As he is heading the case on the ground, you will be working primarily with him."

"Delightful," said the Minister. "Well… if there's nothing else…"

Warren rose. "Miss Weasley… Mr. Malfoy. I cannot sufficiently express my gratitude for your help."

Draco opened his mouth to say that the Commissioner was most kind, but… well, what sort of excuse _would_ he give? _I'm afraid that I must reject the offer, as it would shame my ancient family name to work alongside Muggles?_ Draco had enough self-awareness to know what a prat that would make him sound. Still, it was necessary to say _something_…

Sir Charles Warren gave him an appraising look, and Draco wondered just how much those shrewd brown eyes saw.

"The mere existence of the wizarding world has been a shock to me, Mr. Malfoy," he said. "But I believe that this murderer is far from done with his evil deeds, and I will not allow his reign of terror to continue. I will not permit a killer and madman to run free in my city. The authority to stop him has been given me, and so I will do whatever is necessary."

"I understand, sir." Draco smiled in half-reluctant admiration. He—and everyone else whom he knew—believed that Muggles were fools, rather stupid, rather slow on the uptake.. But this man was no fool. He was severely shaken by the knowledge that the wizarding world existed, but beneath the shock, he was as intelligent as any wizard Draco had ever known. Far shrewder than Spavin, thought Draco.

"In fact," went on Warren in a much lower tone, "I could wish that I had been fully informed a bit earlier, rather than—"

"And we will help you, Sir Warren," said Spavin in a rather louder voice than Draco thought strictly necessary, hurrying between them from the other side of the room.

_Rather than what?_ wondered Draco. _Although… I think that I might already know. _

"A word, Minister, if you please," Draco murmured as they all went out.

"Of course, of course, if you like," said Spavin, his eyes growing wary.

Draco remembered the phrases that Colin Creevey had used not an hour earlier, the clippings on the cubicles in the department office, and Dennis Creevey's eager pestering of his brother for news—not to mention the fact that this was clearly the first that the Muggle Metropolitan Police Commissioner had heard of the matter.

"Have you put other Ministry employees on the case before this?"

"Ah…" Spavin coughed. "In a manner of speaking. Not precisely, but, er. But we've had no-one of your stature, Malfoy, or of Weasley's cleverness. We've needed to be rather sub-rosa about this entire thing prior to today, don't you know. But with this letter, well, the Metropolitan Police were finally fully informed—"

"Minister, do you mean that you've known or suspected all along that there might be some sort of wizarding connection?" asked Ginevra, coming up on Draco's other side.

He coughed again. "Ah, well, there was the possibility. Certain aspects of the cases never truly made sense. So, with our help…" He looked up at Draco. "I'm sure you'll be quite happy to be of service, Malfoy!"

Draco opened his mouth. Ginevra stepped on his foot.

"I'm terribly sorry, Malfoy," she said.

Yes, she was quite sure that she had deliberately stepped on his foot!

By the time he had turned back to the Minister with his prepared speech about how it was simply impossible for him to work on a Muggle case, Spavin was already gone.

* * *

A/N: The "Dear Boss" letter was one of the very first of several hundred supposedly from the Whitechapel murderer that the Metropolitan Police Force had to deal with. It's reprinted verbatim here—except for the last two lines.


	4. Chapter 4

The Ideals of the Victorian gentleman, like other ideals adopted by the upper classes, were worked out, preached, or put across by both upper and middle class propagandists.

_Mark Girouard (1992.) Victorian Values and the Upper Classes. Proceedings of the British Academy, Vol 78. 49-60. _

* * *

"You know that Spavin doesn't actually want you to take the case, don't you?" asked Ginevra, hurrying to catch up with Draco as he walked out along a passage that ran parallel to the atrium.

Draco looked up. He had scarcely registered the fact that she had been approaching him from behind; he had been far too busy running over the events of the meeting in his mind, and reminding himself over and over again that he could not possibly become involved.

"I don't know what you mean, Weasley," he said.

"Oh, I believe you would know, if you'd only spend a bit time thinking it over," she said, matching his stride on much shorter legs. "'Staff?' 'Be of service?' He must have known about how much you'd love that sort of thing."

_She's probably right_, Draco realized, although he was not particularly happy about admitting it. "I suppose so," he said. "Spavin clearly didn't initiate this entire plan; the Muggle Commissioner must have done. I wonder if he'd rather avoid a formal coordination between departments."

The two of them stood for a few moments, looking out over the atrium. Draco felt suspended in midair, in a strangely clear space, not of the wizarding world nor the Muggle one. He knew that he must turn down this work. He knew, in fact, that he must give notice at the Ministry. And yet… and yet. This case fascinated him. Sir Charles Warren was more clever than he had expected any Muggle to be. Perhaps more of them at the Metropolitan Police Department were the same.

And then there was the presence of Ginevra Weasley, silent at his side, her presence somehow seeming stronger than that of most people, her essence permeating the air like a clean fresh scent.

She cleared her throat.

"I meant to say earlier, in the elevator—and I'm sorry I didn't, Malfoy- I'm dreadfully sorry about your, er, losses. Your brother, Rastaban, and your father," Ginny said awkwardly.

"Yes. Well. Thank you." Two years ago, one year ago; enough time had passed so that he was long out of mourning, and could listen to words of condolence with his inner mask intact.

"And, er, your oldest brother, Eltanin," said Ginny. "I heard about what happened—I haven't seen you since Hogwarts, of course, so I didn't exactly have a chance to express sympathy, but, er—"

Was there some sort of time limit on sympathy, depending on long someone had been deceased? Draco wondered about that. The wizarding world of the day, like the Muggle one, had elaborate, specific rules about mourning and behavior after death. So much time at full mourning; so much at half mourning. This length of months or years in black crepe, then gray bombazine, then lusterless Paramatta silk. The depth of black edging on parchment used for letters. The width of the black band on a hat. Very much like Muggles, actually, now that he thought about it.

She seemed to be plucking up courage. "I'm quite good at finding people," she said. "That's why I was called in on this case to begin with. I'm with the Missing Persons Department, you see, as the Minister said. So if I could help you in any way… I mean, if it might be useful…"

She was offering him her help with finding Eltanin. The realization was a shock as sharp as the flash from a new electric bulb, sharp and merciless. Anger. Cold rage. All warred within him. The last hour had taken his mind off the letter, and the news it contained, and everything that the news meant. This case had made him believe, however briefly, that he had the power of choice, and that he could choose to cast aside the letter.

But he knew that he could not. And the time when he must face it was already past; the indecision had already dragged on longer than it should have been allowed to do. So he spoke, each word like a knife cleanly severing the secrets of the letter.

"If you are referring to the whereabouts of my eldest brother, Eltanin," he said through clenched teeth, "the mystery has now been solved. Several of his… personal effects…have at last been found in Johannesburg. Eltanin did indeed perish in the Boer War, that Muggle conflict in which he inexplicably chose to fight. He has now been declared dead, the status changed from 'missing.' My great-uncle informed me of this turn of events less than one week ago. So your kind offer of help is unneeded, Miss Weasley."

She was silent. Just as she had at school, she seemed to know when she had gone too far. He remembered her from school, her frankness, her realization that she had said too much, had gone too far, gone beyond what her middle-class wizarding culture permitted. Was she going to say nothing? But what could she have possibly said? Holding her tongue was the kindest thing she could have done, he thought. And by some miracle, Weasley was managing to accomplish it.

At last, he did all that a gentleman could do in such a situation. He tipped his hat to her. "Good night, Miss Weasley," he said, in tones of ice. He turned away and strode down the corridor, not looking back.

His mind was made up now. His doubts were gone.

This couldn't be true. They simply couldn't be expecting him to actually work on this Muggle case, with the Muggle police. How had he even allowed it all to get this far? From the start, he ought to have treated it as some sort of hideous joke at best, and one in very poor taste, at that; as an insult, at worst. Well, he would start the proper reaction now.

Draco turned into a smaller corridor, and then another, and then the narrow hallway that ended at a door leading directly outside. It was somehow connected with the Malfoy bit of property in the MInistry, and when he simply wanted to get out of the Ministry and be alone with his own thoughts, he used it. His plans grew. He would write to his great-uncle at once and tell him that the Muggle police, of all people, were expecting a Malfoy to aid them in a criminal investigation—and all because they believed that the Muggle involved had some of knowledge of the wizarding world. This Sir Charles Warren seemed to have the matter well in hand, and did not, in fact, need their help. He had probably been convinced that the murders might be connected to the wizarding world because of a few phrases that any Muggle could have learned with a bit of sleuthing work. On top of the insult, there was no reason for Draco himself to become involved. Ginevra Weasley could do so if she chose, but not he.

And he would tell his uncle that he was going to return to Wiltshire, and to Malfoy Manor.

Abraxas Malfoy was probably regretting that he had ever sent his great-nephew to work at the Ministry in the first place. And this horrifying news would awaken his proper sense of what was correct for a Malfoy to engage in, which did not include mucking about with any group of Muggles, much less the police. Draco had no idea why he hadn't replied to that letter with anything definitive earlier, only a vague note. It was past time he did. He needed to live up to his responsibilities, and they did not include this.

He reached the door, a slab of unbelievably ancient wood that no longer existed in either the Muggle or wizarding worlds and that the druids had taken with them when they moved their Britain into the mists, and he reached out his hand to the doorknob. Then he hesitated. For one instant, it seemed as if he had heard odd noises behind him, like the rush of whispering voices. But surely it had been his imagination; he waited, and the sounds were not repeated. He threw the door open.

For a moment, he simply stood in the crisp early autumn air, looking out over the street. The streets were the same in the wizarding world and the Muggle one, as were many of the buildings; the two laid on each other like a lover and his reluctant lass, almost touching but not quite. The wizarding version of London was almost silent, containing no carriages, no horses, no hansom cabs, no noise or smell or chaos. Only witches and wizards walked the streets, and only shops owned by magical folk were open. Everything was muffled, and had an abandoned air. And yet the Muggle world was closer here than anywhere else, as if it could be seen and heard and smelt and felt through a gauzy barrier—if that was what one wanted.

Not that he did want that, of course, thought Draco, scanning the silent streets. The pollution, the noise, the filth, the Muggle diseases—who would want any of it, when magic could sweep it out of the way? Their rigid rules surrounding the role of women were ridiculous—vapors and fainting and helplessness, all tightlaced corsets and fluttering white hands. And those bustles! Women might have well have been carrying an elephant behind them. At the thought of Ginevra Weasley striding into the Muggle police station, bustle-free, he had to smile—which he swiftly turned into a scowl.

Even by living in London at all, he lived closer to the Muggle world than he ever would have done outside of the city. But in his private clubs, in his well-appointed flat, while hosting the elegant dinners for his friends, attending the theater with a witch on one arm, strolling through Hyde Park, and above all, at the elegant brothels he frequented, he was able to forget about Muggle proximity and enjoy himself. At the Ministry, he was forced to mix with all sorts of people who were not gentlemen and ladies, and that experience reminded him too much of Muggles.

And anything that reminded him of Muggles… anything at all…

Draco blinked. Without realizing it, he had walked up Whitehall and then all the way up Charing Cross Road, almost to Trafalgar Square. It was quite empty. It seemed sterile and boring. But then, he was looking only at the wizarding world of London, where nothing else could be expected.

He stared up at the statue of Minister Egbert von Eggleston, known as the Exceptionally Unready, annoyed by the fatuous smile. That wasn't the figure Muggles saw, he knew. Who was it… he could almost remember…

Draco raised his hand. "_Revelo,"_ he whispered, and it was almost as if someone else spoke through him, an impatient, intractable self, kicking at the halter and blinders that were being put on him. He was only trying to prove to himself that all of his damning thoughts were right, he thought weakly, but either way, it was too late.

He pulled aside the veil, and he reached into the Muggle world.

The statue above him grew and flowered into Nelson's Column, flanked by fountains, guarded by four massive bronze lions. And the air burst into noise, a cacophony of a kind never heard in his own world.

The deep boom of barges on the Thames, the shriek of whistles. The clattering of horses' hooves and steel wheels on granite stones. The cries of costermongers, the rattle of omnibuses, the bustling of hansom cabs and the rolling of water carts spraying to keep down the dust of early autumn.

Above all, the sheer volume of street life, the endless streams of Muggles walking, the mix of middle-class men in sack coats, laborers in dirty caps, respectable women in shawls and bonnets, demure millinery girls, flashily dressed ladies of the night. Only the nobility used hansoms or gigs, and even they did not always do so; everyone else walked.

Draco found himself walking towards a corner. Before he reached the street, a small figure hurried his way, broom in hand.

"Clear yer way, guv'nor?" the young boy's voice piped. "A brown or two?"

Draco looked down and saw an eager child with a grimy face. A crossing sweeper, he remembered, one of the nameless hundreds who stood at the corners and cleaned and swept the street so that others could pass through the filthy mud.

He had no Muggle money. He also had no idea if wizarding coins could be used in the Muggle world.

"I've nothing with me at the moment," he said gently. "Or—no, wait." He did have a few shillings, he remembered now. This was not the first time he had walked into the Muggle world for a brief, strange visit, and he had used money a few times- although after each excursion, he always swore that it would be the last and he need never think of it again. He drew the forgotten coins out of his pocket and handed it to the child. A smile broke through the grime on the little face, and the little boy tipped his cap and began to sweep. He could not have been more than eight or nine years old.

Draco stood, looking round, seeing more of the busy scene. Potboys and shop staff were standing at the shop fronts. There was a small but steady stream of clerks, the ones coming late from work, doubtless. There was a watercress-vendor girl… the rich scent of roasted chestnuts… an old clothes' man with a broad-brimmed hat. Because Draco saw these Muggle things rarely, and each time he did see them was an occasion he wanted to forget afterwards—forget the shame of even having wanted to see this Muggle world—it all seemed fresh and new.

There was the dirt he'd expected, too. A grimy brown film covered everything, every building crusted with soot, the streets an ankle-deep churn of coal-black mud, and mud was the most polite term that could be used to describe the mixture. The air smelled acrid. A haze hung over the tops of the buildings and the statue of Nelson in Trafalgar Square, just visible now.

The wizarding version of the same scene was neat and silent and empty and odorless. Far preferable to this roar of noise and light and color.

And yet… and yet.

The Muggles were vibrantly alive.

He was surprised that his thoughts were not completely negative. Surprised, and disturbed as well. Muggles moved; whatever else one wanted to say about them—and there was a great deal that was disparaging to say—their lives were in motion.

How long had it been since any of the Malfoys had done the same?

This latest heir to the name Malfoy, this monument to the wizarding aristocracy that had changed so little over the past millennia, stood arrested in space. He stared out at a world that changed so aggressively from one moment to the next. The Muggles' world had revolutionized from rural peace to the shrieking wheels and gears and motors of the Industrial Revolution; from flickering candlelight to flaring gas and crackling electricity; from horses to trains and horseless carriages, from letters and post to telegraphs and the very first telephones, from Shakespeare's plays to the earliest movies. The world was changing around him, and he suddenly had a thought.

He had read a book written a couple of decades by a Squib_, On the Origin of Species_. The implications had seemed merely interesting then, but as he watched the swiftly evolving Muggle London around him, a more disturbing meaning occurred to him. Like Darwin's finches, the wizarding world needed to adapt as well, and smartly. Or they would be left behind, stranded like fossils in their very own Burgess Shale, and he himself along with the rest.

Then Draco shook his head. He was angry and upset and muddled in his thinking because of today's insanity, and that was all. He raised his hand and brought in down in a swift gesture, muttering a wordless spell, and the Muggle world retreated into the mists once more.

He wanted to relax in his club. To be honest. Draco could think of somewhere else he would like to relax as well—the elegant, upper-class brothel he sometimes frequented- but now did not seem quite the time.

One last heretical thought—what would it be like to walk the rest of the way to his club? He was less than a mile, after all…

Draco set his teeth and stepped into the nearest Apparition point, the memory of Ginevra Weasley's pale face and burning golden eyes following him all the way to St. James's Place.


	5. Chapter 5

The final two decades of the Victorian era witnessed the beginning of a shift in social attitudes regarding gender relations...

_Dr Andrzej Diniejko__, D. Litt. in English Literature and Culture, Warsaw University; Contributing Editor, Poland. The New Woman Fiction. _

* * *

Ginny shared a flat with Hermione in one of the genteelly shabby areas of the East End, just off the bustling Whitechapel Road. Shoulder to shoulder with its neighbors, the terraced building was about eighteen feet wide, with a bit of brick-walled yard behind, and had one entrance, the front door. The dining room (there was no drawing room, which was one of the main features that marked this flat as belonging to the lower middle class and no higher), was about four feet below the level of the ground and rather dark. Dirty light filtered in through one window, the top of which was just above the level of the sidewalk. Their Muggle neighbors were remarkably fond of just happening to glimpse through that window while on their way to and from their own homes, or loitering a bit in the street, and then hurrying home to gossip about whatever they thought they had seen, suitably exaggerated and draped in dark hints about what was really going on in that flat with those two strange women.

"Come in here and talk to me while you change, Mione," Ginny called from the dining room towards the bedroom behind.

"Aren't you afraid that one of the neighbors might see?" her friend hissed back.

Ginny grimaced. The neighbors in the respectable bit of the East End had a spy system that would have done any police department proud. They already gossiped about herself and Hermione more than enough. Why didn't they keep a maid of all work, or a slavey? Everyone knew to a groat how much the rent cost for the flat, and they dressed respectably enough, so they could afford at least one servant. No Muggle woman in London who could afford any sort of help would do without one, for reasons both of status and the sheer amount of backbreaking labor involved with housekeeping and laundry. Everyone wanted at least one girl to do the rough work. So why didn't those two women have one? And what about that brother of the redheaded girl? Why did it seem that sometimes he suddenly appeared on the street in a way that was positively unnatural-like? It was enough to give a body the fits.

And so on, and on. Ginny supposed that Hermione had a point. One never knew when a busybody might be peeping through the curtains.

"The screen's in here," she called to Hermione. "You can undress behind it."

It was a pleasant drawing room, although furnished in heavy, dark, stuffy Victorian style by the last tenant. There was a center table with a lamp to sew and read by, a canary in a cage, sentimental paintings on the wall, a dark-carpeted floor, a tall bookcase in a corner, and a fireplace with china ornaments and a clock under glass on its mantle. Ginny and Hermione could use spells to keep the ubiquitous coal dust from settling on everything, of course, but it was as well to keep up the appearance expected in a Muggle household.

Hermione came into the room, her shawl heaped in her hand, and went behind the screen.

"How is the publishing business in Holborn?" asked Ginny from the chair where she was sipping tea at the table, raising her voice slightly.

"Pretty well," said Hermione, her voice a bit muffled by the blue wool zouave jacket she was drawing over her head. It appeared hung over the edge of the screen a moment later. "I could wish that we were publishing something a bit more uplifting than pornography, but on the other hand, the publisher can't keep up with the demand. After some hemming and hawing, Praiseworthy was happy to get my help."

Ginny nodded. Hermione worked at typesetting and editing in Publisher's Row. A new company had sprung up, run by house-elves who had left service, and it was apparently doing quite well through appealing to the bottomless Muggle demand for pornographic writing and art. Praiseworthy was surreptitiously funding the endeavor whilst still keeping his job at the Ministry for the time being.

"Did you ever finish up with _The Story of a Dildoe_?" Ginny asked.

"Yes, the tenth printing." A long, gored blue skirt appeared, along with a starched white collar and navy blue tie. "Now we've moved on to the eleventh edition of _The Pearl._ I have hopes that we'll get to _The Chastisement of Miss Mary Ann _quite soon."

"What's it like?" Ginny asked curiously. "The writing, I mean."

"Dreadful rubbish. It's boring, really… Ugh, the worst thing about working where Muggles might see one is the need to dress _respectably._ Oh, these petticoats!" A number of said items, both long and short, joined the skirt.

"I think that screen's going to collapse if you place any more items of clothing upon it," said Ginny.

"It may well do. All of this put together must weigh thirty pounds, easily. You're lucky that you can get away with wearing a bit less. Walking about in these skirts is no joke, I assure you."

"Think of it as good exercise," Ginny said dryly. "Where are you going tonight?"

"A Muggle suffragette meeting in Clerkenwell, starting in half an hour. You ought to come as well, Ginny."

"That sounds good, but I'm so dreadfully tired… does that mean you won't wait about for Ron?" asked Ginny. Her brother had said that he might stop by after dinner tonight, as he did once or twice a week, journeying from his rooms for junior solicitors in one of the Chancery courts.

"No," Hermione said firmly. "I've already promised to attend the meeting." Her head popped up above the screen. "Never mind Ron. How are you getting on at the Ministry?"

It was the question that Ginny had been both dreading and anticipating all along. However, she could not deny that she was curious as to what Hermione might have to say about the situation that had unfolded today.

"The Minister offered me a new assignment," she said guardedly. "except that I doubt it will even happen, and it's far more likely to fall apart before it gets any further than it has as of now."

Hermione's eyes lit with interest. "Do tell!"

"Oh, gods," sighed Ginny. "If you're due at the meeting in half an hour, there's no time."

"How much do you think you can cram into five minutes?"

Ginny thought about that. "I'm meant to be working with Draco Malfoy on the project," she said, deciding that this was the most important point.

Hermione's mouth actually dropped open. "Malfoy? Working at the Ministry? Are you joking?"

"I assure you, I'm not. He really is working there, and apparently he's aided in solving several crimes through his knowledge of poisons."

The other woman chuckled and disappeared behind the screen again. "I doubt he's changed a bit. How long has it been since we last saw him at Hogwarts?"

"Seven years, so he must be twenty-five now. And, er…"

_Do you want to know how he's changed? He's grown much more handsome, more than I ever would have imagined he could be. He's grown into his looks, truth be told. Do you recall that pointy rat-faced appearance he sported? It's vanished thoroughly now. And his lanky, rather scrawny body, well, that's changed more than I can describe…_

Ginny scowled and decided that she would infinitely prefer being fed to rabid Nifflers over saying any of those things to Hermione, or to anyone else for that matter. But only Hermione was likely to fix her with that knowing look. She'd always believed that Ginny paid far more attention that she ought to Malfoy's doings at Hogwarts, ignoring her friend's indignant denials.

"Malfoy is much the same, as far as I can tell," Ginny said. That much must be accurate enough, she decided. Snooty, arrogant, and utterly full of himself, just as he had been at school.

"What is the case?" asked Hermione.

"We're supposed to be investigating the Whitechapel murders," answered Ginny.

"I've heard of those. They sound just dreadful, and one has to wonder if the police would have got further by now if the women were the sort they'd call 'respectable', rather than prostitutes." said Hermione, emerging from behind the screen. She now wore bloomers, a plain white shirtwaist, and a short jacket. "Anyway, why do you say you're _supposed _to be?"

"Because I doubt the entire project has any chance of getting off the ground at all."

"And the failure will be Malfoy's fault, correct?" Hermione asked shrewdly.

"Well—yes."

"Because he's a horrid spoilt brat who refuses to do any work?"

"Not exactly," said Ginny. "It's because the Ministry is working with the Muggle Metropolitan Police Department."

"Really? That's awfully difficult to believe." Hermione began to pin up her long hair, moving to stand in front of a small mirror on one wall. "One would think they'd have learned their lesson from Orpington and Dupont. But even if one discounts those rather deluded women, there are so many other examples. Maddeus Morphington causing the Great Fire of 1688 with a careless _Incendio _spell certainly comes to mind. And then there was Ignatius Knollys, whose interference with Henry VIII's bedtime pastry snacks led directly to the execution of Anne Boleyn. And then, of course, one mustn't forget Aethelhard Acceptablefist, who egged William the Conqueror on to acts of savage pillage by inadequate treatment of the corns on his left big toe—"

Hermione at her most pedantic could be awfully tiresome, thought Ginny. Her friend was fully capable of continuing by the hour.

"Mione, I don't know _why _they're doing it now," she said patiently. "But I can tell you that the Minister doesn't seem pleased about the idea in the least."

"Hmm. I should have thought that Spavin would be all for it." Hermione continued to attack her hair, which seemed to be making a desperate attempt to escape from her head.

"Oh, do let me. You'll only put the hairbrush in a sulk," said Ginny, moving to stand behind her friend and smooth her curls into order. "The point is that Spavin doesn't seem very enthusiastic about working with Sir Charles Warren—he's the Muggle Metropolitan Police Commissioner—although I think he'll follow through after some muttering and fuss. But I can't believe that Malfoy is going to be willing to go along with it."

"I wonder if they'd be willing to continue the project with only you," said Hermione, relaxing as her curls began to behave themselves.

"I don't know," said Ginny, beginning to work with the pins. "The chief difficulty there, I think, would be that Muggle police don't like working with women. Ninlil only knows when they'll allow them to be on the force or to do even a tenth of what Aurors do. Without at least having a male detective at my side, there's no hope that they would accept me."

"What fools they are," said Hermione.

"I don't think they're fools, exactly…" Ginny remembered Charles Warren as she swirled Hermione's hair into a bun, drawing a few curls over the top to dangle on her forehead. He had been willing to at least listen to what she had said, which had greatly surprised her. "But it's very difficult for them to change their attitudes, and it would be mad to expect that change to happen all at once. It's our duty, as people from the wizarding world, to be patient. We're far more advanced."

"Are we?" Hermione asked, raising her eyebrows. "You ought to tell your brother that. I believe he'd love for us to sit about embroidering doilies and falling to the floor in fainting fits."

"That's a bit much, but I suppose that you have a point," sighed Ginny. "Speaking of Ronald, he'll definitely be here for supper on Thursday next at eight o'clock."

"How pleasant." Hermione rolled her eyes. "Supper, which _we _shall cook while_ he_ lounges about like a Turkish sultan."

"Hermione—truly—" Ginny's golden eyes met her friend's brown ones in the mirror. "You need to be a bit less hard on him."

Hermione had the grace to flush. "I'm sorry. Honestly, Ginny, you know I am."

There was no need to say more. They both knew what the deaths of Ginny's mother and three oldest brothers had done to Ronald Weasley. Ginny never spoke about what the deaths had done to her, not to Hermione, not to anyone else. She usually managed to convince herself that she did not even need to think about what had happened. In the deepest part of the night, as Ginny stared sleeplessly up at the ceiling, the memories of that last fight with her mother would bloom in darkness. Their contorted faces as they screamed at each other, the furious argument, and then Molly Weasley storming off in the carriage with Bill, Percy, and Charlie, insisting on snatching the reins. Ginny's last view had been of her mother in the driver's seat, hands clenched, face red.

And then, the news of the end.

In the morning, of course, it was all gone.

"Well, at least he does come here for dinners," said Ginny with a forced cheerfulness. "I'm still working on Fred and George. I was thinking, Mione, that perhaps you could try writing to George and see if he'd talk to you. You needn't say that we're sharing a flat. Fred won't read my letters at all, but I think George might be more reasonable."

"I'll try again," said Hermione put on her hat, looking abashed. "Hand me that hatpin, will you?"

Ginny took a long, sharp, lethal-looking pin from the table. "This looks as if you could perform surgery with it."

"Women have had to defend themselves with hatpins, you know," said Hermione, skewering the hat to her head. "It's a pity those poor women in Whitechapel didn't have them on hand."

"I wish I could stay on the case," admitted Ginny.

"Perhaps if they assign another male Auror, you'll be allowed to," Hermione said.

"Maybe."

"And whoever the replacement might be, he'll be easier to work with than Malfoy."

Ginny hesitated. Agreeing with Hermione would be the easiest path, and yet she somehow couldn't quite bring herself to agree with what her friend had said.

"I don't know about that," she said. "I think that he—I mean, someone of his class—would perhaps be more likely to accept my work on the case."

"Malfoy?" Hermione snorted in a most unladylike fashion. "Not likely! He's a prime example of an upper class twit."

"But you just finished pointing out that my brother would be far happier if I remained at home, embroidering picture-frames and pen wipers," said Ginny. "And I'm afraid that you're right, Mione. Ron is a perfect example of our sort. You've said as much yourself."

Hermione said something inaudible under her breath.

"Mione, your parents are different," Ginny persisted. As Bohemians who traveled in literary circles and owned a hydrotherapy spa, they certainly were. "You don't understand what it's like in wizarding families of the middle class. You never have done—no, you haven't, dear. Girls are allowed to do so little outside the home. The female Ministers have almost never come from the middle class. Our attitudes may be even worse than those of Muggles, because we know there is another way. They don't. I believe that in time, they will change. I often wonder if we ever will. A man of Malfoy's class is at least better used to women speaking their minds and doing as they please."

Hermione muttered something about "upper class parasites scrounging off workers," but sufficiently low in tone so that Ginny could pretend not to have heard it. "Well—all right," she finally said. "But still, Ginny..._ Malfoy_. " She gave her hair a final pat. "I suppose there's no point to our discussing it at all, really. I don't doubt that he'll quit the case at once. Actual work with Muggles! Nothing could be further beneath a gentleman wizard. So you've nothing to worry about."

"I suppose not," said Ginny. "In fact…" She hesitated. She was not about to reveal what Draco Malfoy had said to her. She knew instinctively that he had not wanted to tell her that his oldest brother had been declared dead, that he never would have done so if she hadn't driven him to it, however unconsciously. How tight his generous lips had been, how tense all his muscles beneath his robes, how much genuine misery lay behind every word he spoke in his clipped monotone. And what a fool she'd felt. Not least because her first impulse had been to comfort him. She couldn't imagine the sort of outraged rejection she would have got if she'd tried that on top of everything else.

"I've a feeling that he'll return to that estate in Wiltshire where his family has lived since the Stone Age or so, and settle down as lord of the manor," she settled for saying.

"I don't doubt that at all," said Hermione. "I'm only surprised that he ever deigned to work at the Ministry in the first place. I have heard that the Malfoy family has some sort of ancient claim on part of the building, so perhaps it's part of a strange rite of passage for them."

"I know," said Ginny, sitting down again and propping her chin on her hand. "But Malfoy was always so clever. And I've heard that he's been doing very good work for the Ministry. He could be accomplishing so much more than lounging about an estate, sponging off the family fortune."

Hermione stared at her friend. "Why in the world should it matter to you whether Malfoy carries on with being a useless parasite on society or not?"

"It doesn't of course," Ginny said hurriedly.

Hermione stared at her another moment, and then went on with the air of someone dropping a conversation to which they might later return. "But he's never done anything more socially meaningful than that. None of the Malfoys ever have."

"No. And I highly doubt that he will prove to be an exception," said Ginny. "I imagine that he'll put in his notice, or more likely simply disappear, and Colin Creevey will get the assignment instead."

For a strange, perverse moment, she was almost sorry.


	6. Chapter 6

The impressive membership list, the perfectly appointed accommodations, and the good company defined any gentlemen's club of the late nineteenth century as a familiar space.

_Amy Milne-Smith __(2011) Coffeehouses to Clubhouses: Understanding the Gentlemen's Clubs of London. In: London Clubland. _

* * *

Few areas of wizarding and Muggle London matched as closely as the exclusive men's clubs in the West End, clustered around St. James' Place and the Pall Mall. Draco's club had been attended by Malfoy men from time out of mind; most likely they had been one of the founding members, so he followed a long tradition. It hovered somewhere above or between or among White's and Brooks's and Boodles, and while the upper-class Muggle men in those clubs did not know it, the wizarding counterpart was what lent them their aristocratic flavor.

He felt jangly and irritated and at loose ends, and although he had thought vaguely about a game or two in the billiards room, Draco found himself headed for the smoking room. Perhaps a cigarette would help to calm his nerves.

A hint of a smile touched his lips when he saw the fellow member occupying the dark, wood-paneled room. It was impossible not to smile on sight of Gregory Goyle. Oafish, blustering, and soft-hearted beneath the massively muscled exterior, Goyle had been Draco's constant companion at Hogwarts. Although the pairing had always raised more than a few eyebrows and had led to mutterings about the possibilities of a more intimate relationship, Draco had chosen the other boy because his personality formed such a contrast to his own. One simple, the other complex, one easygoing and one tightly controlled; one filled with an open-hearted happiness that had pulled Draco out of his own brooding darkness more than once. After Goyle's brother Vincent died in a flying accident during their third year, the odd couple had become closer in friendship than before. Goyle's intellect was not exactly a deep one, and on reflection, that was exactly what Draco wanted tonight. He was in no mood for profound conversation or deep sympathies. Simple, hearty companionship suited him very well.

"Malfoy!" said Goyle from his comfortable position lounging in a chair, his considerable bulk sprawled over the velvet upholstery in a way that seemed to make it unlikely he would ever succeed in leaving. "Romilda let you out of the clink for a night, or did you just want to see me?"

Draco smiled. It was impossible to be offended by anything that Flint said; his mere presence lent a lazy, jolly, boyish air to any situation.

"I'm done with Romilda Vane," he said, lighting a cigarette. "But yes, I'm quite happy to see you."

"Likewise. You look like you could use one of these," said Goyle, pouring and handing him a snifter of brandy.

He sipped appreciatively. "You're quite right about that, old boy."

For a few minutes, Draco simply enjoyed the brief sense of peace, the warm patina of at least five thousand years of drinking and gaming and general cheerfulness that had seeped into the very walls of the club. That was one of the great things about Goyle, he thought. The man always knew when to allow a moment of quiet to spin itself out, to feel no need to fill silence with idle chatter.

"You headed back to the manor anytime soon?" Goyle asked at last. "Only I know the old man was interested in a brace of hunting Kneazles. There's a fine litter I'm training right now, out of old Catcher's line—you remember Catcher from seventh year, don't you?"

Draco laughed in response. "I ought to. My ankles were never the same."

"He always bit the ones he liked the most," Goyle said. "But these are fine kittens, though I do say as he who bred 'em."

"I'll let my great-uncle know," said Draco. "I can't say that I know exactly when I'll next be getting back, though."

He wasn't completely sure why he was so determined to keep even one hint of the truth from falling. He wished no-one else to know that he was Malfoy Manor's unexpected heir; he could not imagine why he had told Ginevra Weasley. She had always struck his temper like flint sparking a match, and she had not changed in that way.

"You all right?" Gregory Goyle's voice broke into his thoughts. His meaty face looked concerned, his broad brow furrowing.

"I… yes." Draco hesitated. If he was going to tell anyone anytime soon, Goyle would be the one. Perhaps he could at least say something, unburden his thoughts to some extent without explaining all. "That is to say—" he began.

Gregory Goyle stiffened, an unpleasant expression spreading over his face. Following the other man's gaze to the opened door, Draco saw why.

Theodore Nott sauntered into the smoking room. When it came to this particular old acquaintance, he could not forget that the course of their dealings had rarely run smooth. His own feelings were nothing to Goyle's, however.

"I find I have somewhere else I need to be," said Goyle. He nodded curtly to Theodore Nott, who returned the inclination of the head to an even slighter degree, if possible.

Nott had been playing against Vincent Crabbe during that fateful Quidditch match their third year that had resulted in death. While Draco couldn't imagine any scenario that included Nott's actual guilt, he did not blame Goyle for his lifelong feelings in the matter. It still might have little effect on their social intercourse today, but for the fact that only a few years earlier, Nott had taken Pansy Parkinson out from under Goyle's nose. After a brief affair, he had then discarded her. Pansy still talked about how deeply she regretted having her head turned by Nott's facile charm, but the damage had been done.

Gregory Goyle heaved his bulk from the leather chair, gave a warmer look to Draco, and exited the room. Draco was tempted to do the same. Still, he himself had never truly been Nott's enemy, and he did not feel in the least up to a cut direct at the moment.

"Good evening, Nott," he said, rather stiffly. "How are you?"

"Quite well." Theodore Nott dropped to the couch on the right of Draco's chair and raised a hand languidly in the air, his handsome head wreathed in blue smoke from the eternal cigar in his mouth. His mind was exactly as languid as a steel bear trap, as Draco remembered all too well from the Hogwarts days. "And you? Where have you been hiding, Malfoy?"

"Oh… here and there," Draco said vaguely, taking a long drag on the cigarette.

"Keeping yourself busy?"

"I should say so, yes."

"Not too busy, I should hope. Romilda Vane said she hadn't seen you in ages."

"That she hasn't. And she shan't." Draco grimaced. He'd be quite happy to never see Romilda again. He'd made it quite clear from the beginning that their affair was to be both brief and casual. She had been behaving as if he'd never told her any such thing.

"I suppose you'll be going down to the Manor for the shooting season," said Nott. His narrow brown eyes took on a shrewd look.

"Perhaps. I haven't yet decided."

"I'm sure a great many people would be interested to see you in Wiltshire again."

"Mm-hm." Draco was beginning to wonder if Nott had some specific purpose in mind. Perhaps others in the wizarding world really did know something about that letter. Not that it mattered much now, he supposed; everyone was going to have to know sooner or later. The thought that Theodore Nott should be the first one to figure out his situation made him feel ill, however. The other man had always loved sniffing out the dirty secrets that everyone most wanted to hide, all the way back to first year, and he was quite good at it. If one method did not work, he tried another, and he could be persistent as a Niffler on the scent of a secret that interested him. If he could, Draco knew that he ought to distract the other man now.

Draco put his brandy snifter down on the heavy mahogany table. "Truth to tell, Nott, my great-uncle got some sort of idea in his head a few months ago that I ought to be put to work. I'm slogging away at the Ministry, for now, at least." If that didn't change the subject, then nothing would.

Nott shuddered. "How appalling. I can't imagine how awful it must be to be forced to mix with such a common herd as they have at the Ministry. You must loathe every minute of it."

"Ah—yes. Quite so. Of course I do," said Draco, feeling guilty that he was not quite telling the truth. He could not explain that he was finding a keen pleasure in putting his mind to work, in piecing together details to form patterns, and in helping to solve crimes.

"So, what dreadful sort of task is Spavin setting you?" asked Nott.

"You've hit on it with your usual perspicacity, Nott," he said, taking a long drag on his cigarette. "Dreadful is the precise word."

Nott raised a gracefully arched eyebrow. "What d'you mean? Please don't tell me that he has you working alongside half-bloods, or some such horror."

"Not precisely that, but…" In a moment of sudden inspiration, Draco knew exactly how to best distract Nott. "Sir Charles Warren graced us with his presence in the Ministry not an hour since."

"I'm not familiar with the name," said Nott, sounding rather aggrieved over Draco possessing information that he himself did not.

"There's no reason why you ought to be." Draco paused for effect. "Warren is the Metropolitan Police Commissioner."

"That's not an office in the Ministry," said Nott.

"It most certainly is not," said Draco. "It exists above Whitehall, if you take my meaning."

"The Muggle police?" Nott stared at him, hand momentarily suspended in mid-air, the snifter of brandy halfway to his lips.

"The very same."

Nott exhaled a long sigh." What in Zeus's name could Spavin possibly be thinking? Has he gone round the bend, or what? That simply won't do, you know."

"Oh, I know, Nott. And it won't." Draco shuddered and took a long sip of warmed brandy.

"Can't imagine why old Abraxas let you off the estate in the first place," said Theo. "Bloody hard to imagine him running it on his own, what?"

Draco nodded guardedly. He did not care for the way in which Nott had returned to the former subject.

"I suppose he's trying to make a point," he said. "Getting me to buckle down to duty, and all that."

"Ah, yes," said Nott. He looked at Draco for a few moments, his expression bland behind the smoke-rings. "Well, I'm off to play billiards with Smith; just wanted to pop in for a moment. Care to come along and have a flutter?"

"Not tonight," said Draco. He might have stayed much longer; he had planned to do just that, but he had a sudden desire to go home.

On his way out, Draco passed the bar, where Gregory Goyle was sitting at a table filled with numerous cups of milk punch. Marcus Flint stood at the other end, attempting to chat up a giggling bargirl dressed in a skimpy scarlet corset and short skirt. Blaise Zabini, on her other side, seemed to be having far better luck. Goyle put a hand on his shoulder. "Draco, really- _are _you all right?" he asked softly.

He nodded. "Quite all right, Greg—but thanks for asking."

"By the way, have you seen Ginevra Weasley? I hear she's working at the Ministry now," said Goyle.

Draco looked at his friend sharply, suddenly wondering if someone had put him to ferreting out the truth. No; Goyle might not be the sharpest spell in the arsenal, but he was nobody's cat's paw, and if he had wanted to know anything more, he would have simply asked.

"Yes, in passing," Draco said. "She's in Missing Persons, I believe, and doing quite well."

"Good. I always liked her, you know." Goyle looked down into his cup. "Sad about her mother and brothers, don't you think?"

"Whatever do you mean?" asked Draco, a sinking feeling starting in his stomach.

Goyle's dull brown eyes drooped sadly at the corners. "They all died almost a year ago in some sort of carriage accident. Mother and three oldest brothers, I think."

A wave of shame crashed over Draco. _She was in half-mourning… that lavender dress, the jet jewelry… I ought to have known. _Any witch or wizard from the Weasley class and code followed the elaborate Muggle rules about mourning. Less than a year after the death of parent and siblings, most in Draco's aristocratic world would do the same. How could he have been such a fool? The answer came quickly. He had not wanted to see Ginevra Weasley, not wanted to know what she was wearing, or if she was tossing her head so that her red-gold hair sparkled in the old way she'd had from childhood, or if she was parting her full pink lips in a throaty laugh, or if she was doing any of the things that he had most assuredly not been covertly watching back in the Hogwarts days.

"We're off to see Ma Terpsichore in a bit, if you take my meaning," said Goyle. "Want to come along? You seem a bit—well, it might help to take the edge off."

It might indeed, thought Draco. But he only shook his head and repeated the words he had said to Nott. "Not tonight."


	7. Chapter 7

I once heard it suggested that the typical Victorian saying was, "You must remember he is your uncle…"

_G. M. Young, Victorian Essays_

* * *

When Draco first came up to London several months earlier, he had thought about opening one of the Malfoy townhouses in Queen Anne's Street, Belgravia, or Kensington Gardens. Abraxas had said that he didn't want to lose his best house-elves to the project, and his great-nephew had given way quite easily. Upon thinking about it, he felt that this action would have implied a stay of indefinite length, which would most decidedly _not _be the case. He had the flat in Mecklenburg Square prepared instead. It was part of a handsome set of flats surrounding a well-kept garden space, its smooth gravel paths winding between trees, shrubs, and flowers. The square was also an extremely respectable address, holding many second and third sons of prominent families, both Muggle and, in their own separate sphere, wizard. Draco's bachelor flat was small by Malfoy standards, but comfortable, and he required no more than a valet and a good cleaning-elf.

The silent porter, Grimalkin, gave Draco a morose nod as he walked into the doorway and through the foyer of the building. Nobody had ever known Grimalkin to say a word, as far as Draco knew. He'd often wondered if the porter were a shape-shifter who occasionally turned into a large grey cat for surveillance purposes. If so, the man was discreet about it. The Muggle residents saw the same porter, and none of them had ever speculated on shape-shifting cats.

"_Lumos_," murmured Draco, opening the door to his flat. There were no other residents about as far as he could see, but with so many Muggles nearby, it paid to not speak too loudly in the corridor.

Lights blossomed in the narrow outer hall, illuminating a coat rack, an umbrella stand, a box for boots, and a small table. It was Muggle-built and had originally been used for calling cards. Draco's eyes widened when he saw the single parchment scroll on the silver tray. He was sure that he knew what it must be-an owl from Abraxas ordering him back to the estate at once.

In the ten seconds it took to cross the hall, Draco pictured it all.

He would return to Malfoy Manor in the morning, perhaps penning a quick note to the Ministry explaining the need for immediate absence. Once there, he would shoulder the estate duties he had shirked before. He would undoubtedly need to marry quickly, the daughter of some nearby gentry or other, perhaps one of the girls he'd known at Hogwarts and had previously rejected as missish and simpering. He already knew that he would not find a soulmate, nor the other half of a bond. His mother would enjoy planning the wedding, so at least someone would get some sort of pleasure out of this dreary quagmire. This girl would then bear him a number of blond children.

At some point, he would go mad from boredom, and would perhaps need to be locked away in an attic so that his unseemly ravings would not bother the rest of the household. But as long as he and she kept producing heirs, it wouldn't much matter. Perhaps the unknown wife could be brought to him in the madman's attic wing, and he would provide stud service from time to time, which could offer a diversion, at least-

Before Draco could continue these far-from optimistic-musings, the scroll leaped into the air and snapped open, its handwritten words popping out with a flourish of pink sparkles.

_Oh, gods,_ thought Draco. _A Pleader. I should have known._

"There's really no need for this, Mother—" he began.

The parchment shook itself, threatening to explode.

"Very well, I'm reading it! See? You can stop the theatrics now." Draco began to read aloud.

_My dearest son, _

_I do so hope that this letter finds you in the best of health and lightest of spirits. The weather here is simply frightful. Hopefully, the skies are more pleasant in Mecklenburg Square, although in London, I suppose that hope is all one can have. _

_Darling, do come back to the Manor for a visit. I haven't the least idea why you're wasting time in London. I'm sure your amusements are all very nice—I hope you have the sense to keep out of dubious company, I've heard that Theodore Nott and Marcus Flint are in town as well. Dear, do ease my mind and tell me that you're not serious about that dreadful Romilda Vane. Wouldn't she love to get her hooks into a Malfoy, but I sincerely hope that you do not accommodate her. _

_Do write and let me know how you are. _

_Mother. _

The parchment refolded itself neatly and dropped back into the tray. Draco groaned. He ought to have known that she would do something along these lines. Perhaps, he thought guiltily, he was not altogether free of blame. He ought to have written to his mother weeks before.

Narcissa Malfoy had not worn mourning long after the death of her husband two years earlier. The private conjecture among her friends in her social circle was that she had no need to. Lucius Malfoy, the late and unlamented, had been a brute, they whispered. He had never laid a hand on her, of course, but Draco often thought that the subtle tortures used in ages past that could drive men to madness without ever leaving a mark must have been very similar to his father 's methods. Draco, he had mostly ignored; Eltanin, as the heir, had received the dragon's share of pressures and expectations and punishments. Rastaban, next in line, took the second largest portion. By the time Lucius got to Draco, there simply wasn't much left—although the leftovers had been more than enough.

Narcissa, the social butterfly, had blossomed after Lucius Malfoy's mysterious death. There were rumors that she kept company with Blaise Zabini's uncle, with Marcus Flint's father, with Cyril Parkinson, who was Pansy's cousin and a good deal younger than Narcissa herself. She flitted from parties to balls to operas to dinners without ever landing anywhere solid. If she was happy, then Draco was satisfied. But it was difficult to know what to say to one another.

Still, he should have tried, if only to forestall a Pleader.

He walked back to the dressing room attached to his bedroom and dropped into a chair. He could have called Dally to undress him and prepare him for bed; the house-elf knew when Draco wished him to be silent. He was certainly in no mood for raillery or the easy camaraderie that the Malfoys often enjoyed with their house-elves over the centuries (and indeed, millennia.) Wizards like the Malfoys didn't indulge in the Muggle nonsense of insisting that their servants turn their faces to the wall when they entered the room, but house-elves were flexible. When their masters desired them to be noiseless and invisible, they were so.

Draco was in no mood to face anyone at all tonight, not even a house-elf. Slowly, he began to undress, laying his robes on an elegant teak rack. Questions plagued him like flies. _Why _hadn't Abraxas sent the letter that Draco had expected? Was he truly happy to care for all the estate business himself? Draco had a hard time believing any such thing.

Great-uncle Abraxas was a throwback to the Regency era of his youth, living very much as if the year were 1812, rather than close to a century later. He gloried in the traditional activities of an English country squire: hunting, shooting, dining, gambling, drinking, and wenching. At the age of one hundred and twenty-five, he was a typical long-lived wizard, hale and hearty. But he was beginning to show the first signs of slowing down these pleasurable activities.

The frivolity and ostentation of the Georgians had shaped his personality, and it could not be changed by the sober strictness of Victoria. Yet even he knew when the Malfoys must adapt. He had let drop a hint or two that it was more than time for his nephew to settle down. This showed a trace of hypocrisy, in Draco's opinion, since Abraxas himself had never remarried after the very early death of his own wife nearly ninety years before.

His great-uncle was right, of course, thought Draco, unbuttoning his shirt. He himself had no need to wait for marriage until he had saved enough money to set up an establishment for a wife, as the middle class was obliged to do. Yet the idea was not appealing. He did not want any of the women he might marry. He wanted one with spirit, with fire, with a flash in her golden eyes and an edge to her honeyed voice, with a trim yet voluptuous body and a cascade of red-gold hair…

He grimaced, suddenly feeling a strong desire to not allow this line of thought to continue. Sighing, he leaned forward and rubbed his chin, looking at his face in the mirror on his dressing table.

The ghost of his two lost elder brothers haunted him always. Sometimes, he would see a trace of Eltanin in the mirror out of the corner of his eye, the nose shorter than his own and the cheekbones lower and more square. Sometimes, he thought he saw Rastaban's characteristic crooked smile. Then he would look up quickly, and the spectral trace would vanish every time.

Draco sat back and sipped at the warmed brandy from a snifter that had obligingly appeared on the table. Sometimes Batty, the valet-elf, did a remarkably good job of guessing at what his master wanted and silently supplying it.

He looked at the scroll on the table in front of him. He had been so very sure that it must be from his great-uncle. And at the thought, he had felt… he had known…

Draco squirmed, but he was honest enough with himself to admit exactly what he had felt.

An anticipatory rush of relief had run all through him. He had known that it would be so much easier to follow orders. Perhaps, he thought now, it would be easy in a different way to rebel against them instead, to kick against the traces that his great-uncle was trying to put on him. But this choice… this decision… he did not want to be the one who made it.

Why in Astarte's name had his great-uncle sent him to town anyway? A stint in the Ministry was not required in order to keep the Malfoy claim on the land and the office. It was theirs in perpetuity. He could have stayed in Mecklenburg Square as long as he liked without ever setting foot anywhere near Whitehall. He enjoyed the city, of course. And an extended trip to London was in itself not a bad idea—an excellent one, in fact, from the point of view of finding a wife with a family plump in the pocket. As in Muggle society, however, the greatest number of husband hunters would be in London only for the Season. April through the end of June would have been the best time to survey them, or perhaps through the middle of August, when the red grouse shooting season began. The second-best time would have been in January, when Parliament came back into session.

In fact…

Draco paused, frowning.

His great-uncle had chosen the _one_ time of the year when eager debutantes would be completely absent from London. In the autumn, the activity continued on country estates, where women would show themselves to best advantages while riding to the hounds in side-saddles. Literally none of them would still be in town.

His mind chased after the thought for an instant. It was almost as if this were planned… but why?

Then he shook his head. He really could not imagine Abraxas Malfoy plotting out any such thing. Perhaps he only wanted to frighten his great-nephew with the specter of working for a living, so as to whip Draco into cowed shape for the marriage mart. If so, the plan was working, he thought grimly. But perhaps not as well as he might have liked. It would have been so much easier if he had no inclination towards his work at the Ministry at all. Then, there would have been no real need to make this choice, to hesitate, caught between duty and a yearning that he should not be feeling. Perhaps there was something cowardly about the wish for the choice to be taken away from him once and for all, so that he need not make it.

_Am I a coward_? he thought. The idea was unpleasant in some way he could not define, beyond its unacceptability to wizards and Muggles alike. But could he be acting as one in this situation? Not in any obvious way, but subtly?

That Weasley woman certainly had a way of making him feel like one. Her golden eyes mocking him, appraising him, measuring him, and he was always sure that she was about to find him lacking.

Ginevra Weasley. He remembered her, all at once, as if the thought had summoned up the sight and sound and smell of her.

And, oh gods, but what a fool he felt in not figuring out that she was in mourning for someone who had died in her family. He couldn't have been expected to know precisely what had happened with her mother and brothers, but he could have mumbled general condolences at the very least. At least she had done that much for him, in the matter of his own brothers.

He could not stop thinking about his brothers tonight, as if the incident with Ginevra Weasley had conjured up their unquiet ghosts. As he finished undressing and got into bed, the old intrusive memories drifted through his head, unstoppable, shading from unwelcome thoughts into dreams.

"I shall see no son of mine join the Muggle military in any capacity," Lucius Malfoy had snarled on that day seven years earlier.

"Then I should advise you to look elsewhere, Father," Eltanin had replied in his coldest, most courteous voice.

The door from the library into the corridor had been open just a crack. Draco had stood behind, flattened against the wall, and had seen it all, heard it all. His father stood behind a carved mahogany desk, fingers clenched into fists; his oldest brother, before one of the overstuffed deep red armchairs, standing ramrod straight and almost at attention.

"Over my dead body," Lucius said, his voice icy.

"If that is your wish," Eltanin replied.

And then, three years earlier, Rastaban. That long, hot afternoon in August, when they were riding together in the fields to the south of the estate…

Draco swore an oath that would have led to his mouth being cleansed with soap, had he been heard by his pre-Hogwarts tutor. Then he got out of bed. Sleep was a hopeless project, but he knew one duty that was not.

He was going to write that letter. It was ridiculous for him not to have done so already. Why on earth hadn't he written this letter the moment he returned to his flat? All of this thinking, remembering, considering, hesitating—it was unnecessary. He knew what he must do; he had only to act. He could not understand why this action seemed so difficult to take. But that did not matter.

Draco pulled parchment and pen out of a drawer in his dressing table, and he began to write. He told his great-uncle Abraxas that on the next day, he would return to help with running the estate, but he did not stop there. There was much more, about the pride of Malfoys, the esteem due to the family name, the dangers of Muggle-mixing, and so forth; phrasing that he knew was far over the top even as he wrote the words. He wrote more floridly than he otherwise would have done, because that glimpse of his own obsolescence in the mirror of the Muggle world had frightened him. Perhaps, too, the memory of Ginevra Weasley had done its part.

He sent off his eagle owl before he had time to think twice, and when he returned to bed a second time, he did sleep, although badly.


	8. Chapter 8

The Jack the Ripper Murders presented the Victorian Police with a type of crime that they had little experience of handling.

_Richard Jones. (2019) A Different Type of Crime. Jack the Ripper: The Police Investigation._

* * *

In the morning, Draco was very much of two minds over whether to show up at the police station at all. He had been sure that he would wake to a parchment on the silver card tray on the front hall table, a letter from his great-uncle, ordering his instant return. But he did not. And he was honest enough to admit that since he'd failed to owl a cancellation to Minister Spavin the night before, it would be downright rude to also fail to show up when he had promised to do so.

What a mess he had got himself into, thought Draco as he dressed. Batty could have aided the process, but he did not want even an elf to see that he owned a set of Muggle street clothing. He himself was able to forget the fact every time they were shoved to the back of the closet.

He should have refused the assignment the night before; he would have no need to be trapped in the dilemma now. He could have done so coldly; he could have rejected the idea of working with Muggles with an outraged gentleman's hauteur; he could have more gently explained how impossible it was for him, a Malfoy, to work in such a lower-class setting as a Muggle police office; he could have conjured up some sort of convincing excuse. He could even have told the truth, but considering that he really preferred the wizarding world to remain ignorant of his change in status for the moment, that was the least likely decision for him to make.

But Draco had done none of those things. So he sighed and buttoned his beautifully cut navy blue frock coat. He would meet the Muggle inspector and Ginevra Weasley at the station for form's sake, and then he would politely give his notice.

The Leman Street police station was typical of Muggle architecture of the day, all grim, weathered stone colored blackish-brown by the relentless soot and smoke in the air. Draco stood on the cobblestones for a moment and then started up the broad stone stairs. He nearly jumped at the feel of a small, strong hand on his arm, and he looked down to see Ginevra.

"You're not going in without me, are you, Malfoy?" she asked by way of greeting.

Did she possess absolutely no concept of manners? he wondered. Considering the rest of the Weasleys, it was entirely possible that she did not. _The rest of the Weasleys…_ At the thought, and the memory of what he had learned about he death of her mother and three oldest brothers, he had to fight down a wave of shame. He ought to offer consolations of some sort, but he had no idea how to begin.

"Good morning, Miss Weasley," he said.

"Um—good morning, Malfoy," she replied, her cheeks rather pink. "I suppose we ought to go into the station, don't you think?"

The moment passed. She was nervous in the unfamiliar situation as well, he realized, and she felt just as annoyed by the fact as he did, and as determined to hide it. The thought cheered him for some odd reason. Most likely, it was no more than the fact that he would be able to see Ginevra Weasley discomfited.

A man sat at the duty desk in front, and he gave them an odd look.

"'Arternoon, sir, miss," he said. "You'll be wantin' Mr. Reed, then?"

"Yes," said Draco. They were expected, all right.

"Top o' the stairs and end o' the corridor."

The door to the first room on the right was open. Unsure of exactly what to do, Draco knocked and then went in, holding the door open for Ginevra. The room was rather dim and filled with papers, cabinets, and baskets stuffed with files, but everything was arranged neatly and with precision. Gas lamps hissed quietly on the walls, spreading pools of light.

A man was seated at a long table, peering at a piece of paper. He rose to greet them. A medium sort of man, thought Draco. No great height, no impressive physical fitness, no bulging muscles. With roundish features, middling brown hair, beard, and mustache, and indifferently cut clothes, Reid resembled the better sort of bank clerk or successful shopkeeper—until Draco met the inspector's eyes. Brown, shrewd, and sharp, they pierced through him as if measuring his character in a way that Draco was not at all sure he cared for.

He rose from the table. "Ah, there you are. So very pleased to see both of you. Miss Weasley. And—" He hesitated when he came to Draco, clearly recognizing a social status with which he was not familiar.

Draco heard Ginny's slight sigh at his side, and he could almost read her thoughts. _I can hear it now._ _Malfoy is about to insist on the most excruciatingly proper means of address possible. "Your Majesty" will scarcely cover it._

"'Mr. Malfoy' is quite all right," he said, smirking at Ginny's start of surprise.

"Very well. Please be seated. Your time is valuable, I am quite sure, so we shall get to the point at once." Reid waved them both to chairs next to his at the large oak table. "Allow me to outline the case. In essence, this is a set of exceptionally nasty murders, and they get worse as they go along."

"Are they usual in this particular area? I understand that its people are extremely poor, and that crime is rather rampant," said Ginevra.

"Yes, and no," said Reid. "Murders aren't quite as common in even this bit of Whitechapel as one might think. More respectable people live in the neighborhood than one might imagine, although there are certainly very many of the criminal class. But there are far more cases of theft, assault, men knocking about their wives, gangs of bullies roughing up prostitutes for money, those sorts of things. When killings do occur, they're nearly always drunken men bashing each other's heads in for spite or for tuppence. But _four _murders, robbery clearly being no motive, and all of them with such exceptional violence… that's quite another story."

"So what exactly_ has _happened, Inspector?" asked Draco.

"I'll try to be as concise as I can. One of the searjants should be bringing in the information right about now," said Reid. He raised his voice slightly and called to someone out in the corridor. "Ah, there he is. Thicke, if you'd be so kind as to bring in those files?"

A stocky, brown-haired policeman brought in a large stack of paper files. He put them down on the table. On seeing Ginny, he cleared his throat.

"Miss, uh… there is a far better waiting room down the hall. I can have some tea brought if you like."

"That won't be necessary," said Reid, forestalling what Draco could clearly see was going to be an indignant protest on Ginevra Weasley's part. "She'll be working with the case."

The searjant's eyes widened. "Er…" He didn't seem to be quite capable of finishing the sentence. Draco was hard put to it not to snicker. Perhaps he'd get some amusement out of this morning after all, before the inevitable refusal to have anything more to do with the case.

"That shall be all for the moment, Mr. Thicke," said Reid, his voice firm. He turned back to Draco and Ginevra.

"We have a number of police reports, coroner's reports, witnesses' testimony, et cetera, but I believe the best way to handle it all at the moment will be to summarize everything that has happened."

Ginevra nodded and looked at Draco.

"Ah—of course," he said. He couldn't very well add that there was no point in his hearing any of it, because this morning was the last time he'd ever set foot in a Muggle police station, or the Ministry, either. Or at least that was what he told himself.

"The first victim was most likely a woman named Emma Smith," said Reid.

"Why do you say 'most likely'?" asked Ginevra. "Is there any doubt?"

"Yes, I should say that there is, and there may even have been others earlier, such as Annie Milwood. But in my opinion, the Smith case was the one which began to show the similarities in the crimes," said Reid. "She was attacked and very severely beaten and stabbed on April third of this year at the Wentworth Street junction of Osborn Street, in the East End. She staggered back to her lodgings in St. George, and her neighbors persuaded her to go to the London hospital between four and five in the morning. She was able to describe her attackers to the doctor on duty before she died from the injuries inflicted—let me see—" Reid shuffled through the papers. "ah, yes, Dr. George Ernest Haslip. The curious thing, however, is that her descriptions of the men, and the number of the men, shifted again and again within the course of minutes. She said more than once that her attacker had acted alone. So although some of my colleagues dismiss the possibility that Smith was a victim of the Whitechapel killer, I would not be so sure."

"Exactly what were the nature of her injuries?" asked Ginevra.

"Ah… the detailed description is in the coroner's report." Reid hesitated.

Ginevra raised her auburn brows. "May I read it?"

The Inspector hesitated for another moment and then handed the file to her. She held it between herself and Draco so that he could read the report as well. When he did, he knew exactly why an inspector in the Muggle police department had hesitated before handing this file to a woman to read. For a second, an awful wave of nausea ran through him. He had dealt with crimes committed coldly, deliberately, measured out in drops of poison. Never such bloody savagery and mutilation as this.

Reid was glancing at Ginevra, as if assure himself that she would not fall down in a faint at the horrible details. Weasley looked back at him, calm and dry-eyed, and Draco could not help but feel more than a touch of admiration.

Also, he'd be damned if he'd let her show him up.

Still, Draco had to clear his throat before he could speak, and he feared that his voice was just a bit shaky.

"May I have a copy?" he asked.

"Of course, Mr. Malfoy. I shall instruct one of our clerks to copy out all of the reports after our meeting."

"No, that's quite all right; I'll do it now," said Draco. His hand shook as he took out his wand and ran it over the paper, and he was glad that he could use a wordless spell. He was not entirely sure that he had the strength of mind to cast anything more complex at the moment. A new parchment with an exact copy of each page of the file snapped into existence in the air and laid itself at Draco's side on the table.

For a moment, Reid's utter astonishment showed through on his face. He regained his composure much sooner than Draco would have imagined possible, however.

"What a marvelous way of quickly creating copies," he said. "I wish that we could… ah, well. I'm sure that sharing knowledge of that sort is not allowed."

Draco shook his head. "I'm afraid not."

"I'll continue, then," said Reid. He picked up the next sheet of paper. "Martha Tabram was the second victim. She lived in the George Street rooming houses, as did Emma Smith. She was… ah… soliciting prostitution on Whitechapel Road in the late morning of August third. Tabram is the only victim to date who can be proven to engage in full-time prostitution, by the way. A price was apparently agreed upon, and she took her client into George Yard—which is one of the most dangerous streets of the locality. Her body was found at half past three at the bottom of a set of stairs in an arch surrounding the doorway of the George Yard Apartments, where the unfortunate woman resided earlier this year. As you can see…" He handed Draco the coroner's report. "Tabram was stabbed thirty-nine times."

Ginevra frowned. "Did no-one hear anything at the time of the murder?"

"No witness has stated that they did," said Reid. "The fact is most unusual considering how heavily populated is that part of the East End. The next case, however, is even stranger."

With a feeling of dread, Draco copied the Martha Tabram report and handed it back to the inspector. _This is only going to get worse_, he thought. _As dreadful as my grades were in Precognition class, I would be willing to bet a million Galleons on that. _

"Polly Nichols was murdered on August 31st," said Reid. "Her body was found in Buck's Row, one of the more respectable parts of the East End, but the evening apparently began in the most degraded part of Flower and Dean Street."

"It's supposed to be a place where even the police won't go alone, isn't it?" asked Ginevra.

Reid nodded. "I am very much afraid that such is the case. Flower and Dean, Dorset, Thrawl, and Commercial Street- that quarter mile is a hotbed of crime of every description. Still, the crime itself did not occur there. Nichols apparently left the area just before three in the morning, and we believe that she solicited a… er… customer a few blocks to the east, and that they walked together to Buck's Row. That was not her usual custom, but the unfortunate woman was doubtless desperate. We are still trying to find two other women, professional prostitutes, who were supposedly speaking with Polly Nichols shortly before she disappeared. I believe that we could gain more information if we were able to find them, but to date, we have had no luck. At any rate, the unfortunate Nichols woman was killed in very much the same manner as Tabram, although with far more savagery."

He handed the coroner's report to Draco. The words swam in front of his eyes as he read the cold, clinical descriptions of what had been done to Polly Nichols. The inspector was right, he thought. The details of the crime were unspeakable, far worse than the last, although he saw their similarities to the murders of both Tabram and Smith.

_I will not be sick_, he repeated to himself again and again._ I will not, I will not, I will not._ He saw out of the corner of one eye that Ginevra Weasley was struggling for composure as well, but the sight gave him no pleasure.

"The circumstances in which Nichols was found prove that she was killed where her body lay," Reid was going on. Draco forced himself to focus. "For the third time in a row, no-one heard a cry, a shout for help, a scream, a struggle, or anything similar, although it is a remarkably crowded neighborhood. I have never seen such a thing before in my entire career with the Metropolitan Police. It was at this point that I myself began to wonder whether we were dealing with something entirely…" Reid seemed to be searching for the right word. "_Natural._ I mean no offense; that is not to say that the discipline which both of you follow does not proceed from nature, even though it is called magic."

"No offense taken at all, Inspector," said Ginevra. Her voice sounded amazingly calm, even though her face had taken on a slightly green tinge. Pride stiffened Draco's spine.

_I refuse to funk this,_ he thought. _Never mind that I will have nothing more to do with it after today. I will not see a Weasley remain calm while a Malfoy breaks down. I could never show my face again! _

"There is one more case to date," said Reid. He picked up a last sheaf of papers. "Annie Chapman was killed on the eighth of September on Hanbury Street, less than half a mile from Buck's Row. I believe that within an hour or two of her death, she spoke to at least one of the prostitutes who also knew Polly Nichols—so you see why those women must be found, Miss Weasley. Chapman's body was found in the passageway of a house that contained seventeen people. The number of residents is not uncommon at all in the East End; there are some areas where a family of eight might share a single room. One of the lodgers found her at about six o'clock in the morning."

"But no-one heard her earlier?" asked Ginevra. "How is that possible?"

"Again, I do not know," said Reid. "Is there any sort of… magical art… which might have been used by a non-magical killer?"

The inspector was addressing him, Draco knew. But he was reading the coroner's report for Annie Chapman and wondering how he ever thought that he could do ten minutes' worth of this sort of work. _Perhaps I really am a coward,_ he thought. _But to become hardened to this sort of thing… I think I would prefer cowardice. _

"Malfoy?" Ginevra's voice broke into his despairing thoughts. The one word was crisp and clear, and, he thought, might just hold a hint of scorn. He rose to that challenge.

"Is there any record in any of these crimes of a single witness hearing any sort of noise at all?" he asked Reid.

"No. And as I said, that is perhaps the single most puzzling aspect of all of these cases- that nobody heard a cry or a scuffle," said Reid. "The streets of the East End are more heavily populated than any other part of London, filled with people day and night. Even during the brief lulls, witnesses are never more than a handful of yards away. Yet no-one heard screaming, begging for help, or anything similar. To me, this makes no sense at all. Have you any theories on the matter?"

Rationality was returning to Draco's mind. This was a challenging question, a fascinating problem, and some part of him that loved this work more than anything else rose to it eagerly. He put down the report.

"If wizarding methods came into play at some point, then yes, it is possible," he said. "A Silencing charm, perhaps. But those are not always reliable if cast quickly, as it would need to have been."

"But Minister Spavin seems to believe that the murderer cannot be a wizard," said Reid. "Do you know why he would have such a strong conviction, Mr. Malfoy, Miss Weasley?"

"I'm not sure," said Ginevra a bit cagily.

"I believe it's because there was no trace of wizarding essence at the crime scene," said Draco. "Or at least that is what the Minister said. I would reserve judgement until actually testing the area, however." Too late, he realized that he'd spoken as if he planned to continue investigating the murders. He must extricate himself at some point, and soon. But it wouldn't do to stand up and announce that he would have nothing more to do with the business. If nothing else, he could just picture the self-satisfied smirk on Ginevra's face if he did.

Reid drummed his fingers on the tabletop for a moment. "Is there anything which could have the same effect as a Silencing charm and yet would not require a wizard to cast it?"

The question hung briefly in the air until Ginevra broke the silence.

"What about a poison, Malfoy?" she asked Draco.

_Very clever._ "Yes, that's very possible," he replied. He turned to Reid. "It could have been, and that would be the only option I can think of if we're trying to find a way that a Muggle could have used any sort of magical means. There are poisons limited to the magical world which can still be used by non-magical people. These women were not killed by any poison or potion, yet they may have been used to pre-emptively silence any cries for help. The question of how no-one heard any other sort of struggle could also be solved in this way."

Reid's brown eyes were sharp with interest. "So you do think that a magical poison or potion was somehow involved."

Draco nodded. "I see no other options which explain the facts in evidence."

Reid turned to Ginevra. "And you, Miss Weasley—do you believe that you'd be able to find these two missing prostitutes who may hold the clues to the Nichols and Chapman murders?"

"I believe that I can," said Ginevra. "But I must warn you that I have had experience only in finding witches and wizards. Do you feel that there is any link between those two women and the wizarding world?"

"That is what I should very much like to find out," said Reid. He shuffled through the stack of files. "Damn—I beg your pardon, Miss Weasley—the post-mortem photographs are nowhere to be seen. I do wonder where they may have got to. I particularly wanted you to see… well. Let us only hope they haven't gone missing entirely. Excuse me for a moment." The inspector rose from his chair and went through the door and out into the hall.

Draco wondered what Ginevra would do now. She'd looked rather pale, and he hoped he wouldn't have to deal with a fit of hysterics that she had somehow managed to suppress for the sake of the Muggle inspector.

But when he glanced at her, she was actually smiling slightly. Smiling! That unsettled him in a way that he couldn't describe. She should not be able to regain her composure so easily. Such self-control was not entirely… he fumbled for a word…_ ladylike._ Draco did not have the same expectations about the role of women that a Muggle in Victoria England had, or that the wizarding middle class possessed. And yet… well, Ginny ought to be at least a _bit_ closer to the angel in the house.

"Reid seems extremely professional," he said, for lack of anything better to say.

"Yes. I suppose, Malfoy, you wouldn't have thought that a Muggle police inspector could do the job so well," she said.

It seemed impossible for her to say a gracious thing, he thought.

"I rather like his straightforward manner," he said, just to annoy her. "He laid out the facts very well, and he seems professional indeed."

"So you'll be happy to work on the case, then?" she asked, clearly refusing to take the bait.

Draco vowed that Ginevra would most certainly not be the first person to hear his firm denial. He shrugged his shoulders noncommittally.

In a strange way, he was beginning to regret the fact that he had no choice but to turn down this assignment. His interest and intellect were engaged, and such engagement was the last thing he had expected. Yet he was only being foolish now, because he did have to refuse this expectation, of course. Perhaps he would let this Inspector Reid down easily. He was a remarkable man, clever, insightful, and devoted to his calling.

And perhaps there was some sort of way to keep Ginevra Weasley from finding out about his desertion at all!

The door opened again, which rescued him from the horns of the dilemma for the moment, at least.

"Potter?" Reid called behind him, into the hall. "If you could bring those files in here, I would be much obliged to you."

Another police officer walked into the room with a stack of folders. For some reason, Draco's eyes were immediately drawn to him. He could not think why. The man was young, perhaps his own age, tall, with rather untidy-looking black hair and bright bottle-green eyes. He looked familiar in some way that Draco could not define, although he was sure he did not know this Muggle. He saw that Ginevra was giving the young policeman an odd look as well.

Potter put the files down in the center of the table and then turned to leave. When Reid was busy sorting out files, attention distracted, he gave both Draco and Ginevra a strange, long look. Ginevra's brow furrowed, and she seemed about to say something. Potter turned and quickly left the room, closing the door after him.

Reid looked up. "Ah—did Mr. Potter leave already? Pity, I was hoping to introduce him to you. He is one of our fastest rising stars. He recently transferred from the beat division, and he's already making his mark. That's a young man who will go far in the department, mark my words." He opened the folder and studied the top photograph.

"There must be some sort of link between the victims," he said. "We simply don't know what it is. It's not enough that they are all at least part-time prostitutes; most women in the East End are occasionally driven to such methods to earn a few shillings. There must be more that they have in common." He flipped through the glossy photos. "I cannot be certain, but I believe I saw something that became clearer with the last two photographs. They seem to share a certain likeness. Not in features, precisely, although they do all have a certain physical resemblance as well. All four were blonde, with blue eyes, and one can tell that they were once extremely handsome women." He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "A police inspector, if he is any good at his job, grows to have instincts. Intuitions, ones that perhaps cannot be explained." He gave Draco and Ginevra a sudden, shrewd look. "I think that perhaps _you _may be able to _explain_ what I can only_ feel_."

Draco took the folder of photographs, laying it between himself and Ginny. He began with Emma Smith.

The post-mortem photographs might have been unbearable to see if he had not first read the reports. In a strange way, the chilling, clinical words had been worse than actually viewing more of the murderer's handiwork. He moved on to the photograph that showed her dead face, immobile and peaceful as if sleeping.

"This might be more useful if the photographs moved, but I know that the Muggle sort do not," Ginevra was saying.

He held up a hand for silence, and something in his face must have convinced her to lower her voice.

"What do you see?" she whispered.

"I'm not sure yet." Draco moved on to Martha Tabram.

"What about now?"

"Shh."

He stared at their oddly peaceful faces, these victims of the Whitechapel killer, and a feeling of familiarity began to flood through him. He almost knew them, or at least knew what they were. Almost. He needed to see the rest.

Draco pulled out the photographs of Polly Nichols and Annie Chapman and laid them side by side, scanning them. The elusive likeness was sharpening into some sort of focus, although he did not yet know of exactly which type.

"You did not imagine the similarity, Inspector Reid," he said. "But I am not yet quite sure…" He rubbed his chin. It all called something up for him that he can't define. Something was nagging at him, an unsolved question, like an itch he knew that he should not scratch.

He ought not to become involved any further in this case at all. Now was the time to say that he could not do so. He would receive his uncle's reply by today's owl post, surely. It was time to say no.

"Well, Mr. Malfoy?" asked Reid.

"I would like to see those personal items belonging to the victims," he said, surprising himself. "The ones to which the reports referred—a hat, two scarves, and a shawl?"

"Yes, of course. The victims' personal effects are being held in the Whitechapel Mortuary," said Reid. "It isn't far, so we will walk."

"We shall meet you," said Draco, rising. "We have our own methods of transportation."

"I don't know why you wouldn't just walk," said Ginevra as he took her arm and led her to the nearest Apparition point behind a lamppost. "It's only a very short distance."

"In this neighborhood? You must be joking," said Draco.

"Are you worried for the sake of my reputation?" she asked him, her voice mocking, a smirk on her generous pink lips.

"Not at all," he replied. "I don't care to sully my shoes with whatever horrors the mud may be concealing. Now if you would hold my arm firmly, Miss Weasley, because I don't care for either of us to end up Splinched… _Apparate._ "

"Why on earth _are _there so many Apparition points in the East End, anyway? There must be more than anywhere else in the entire city," Ginevra said as the spell took hold. The question kept echoing in his head during the entire length of the Apparition, and he could think of no answer.

The mortuary was a little brick building at the right of a large yard, across from a playground and adjacent to a school. "The current location is far from ideal," said Inspector Reid, showing through the front door, "but we hope to build a new facility soon." He brought out several tattered items of clothing from a closet and laid them on a large table.

"_Revelo certis_," murmured Draco, using a modified Wandless spell he had recently developed. His fingers sifted through a shabby bonnet, two scarves, and a shawl. "_Identitatem genus hominem_…"

And he knew.

He cast another _Revelo _spell with his wand for confirmation, but it only told him what he had already felt through his fingertips. The essence that these women had left on their clothing was unmistakable. He knew the similarity of which Edmund Reid had spoken, the connecting thread between all four of these women, particularly the last two. It was as if he looked at his own face in a mirror and recognized some essential thing, some foundational construct of who he was, or who all his sort were. The quality was in the face of Ginevra Weasley, but not Inspector Edmund Reid, or Sir Charles Warren, or Searjant Walter Thicke.

"Well?" Reid's voice broke into his thoughts. "Do you believe that you have found something of significance, Mr. Malfoy?"

"As far as the killer, I agree with Minister Spavin's statement," said Draco. "There is no trace of magic, or at least none that I can tell. These victims are another matter entirely." He raised his head. "'They're Squibs."

Ginevra gasped softly.

Reid gave Draco a confused look. "I'm sorry? I don't understand."

Draco turned to him. "All four of these women are what we would call Squibs, the last two in particular. I need to explain what I mean, of course. A Squib is a person who has some degree of magical essence, but no magical powers as such. Emma Smith and Martha Tabram both had a very low level of this quality. But Nichols was different, as was Chapman. They were very nearly witches." He ran his wand over the items of clothing, storing information for later retrieval in a manner that he had perfected for use in his work with poisons.

"Is it possible to learn even more about these women?" asked Reid.

"It's quite possible that I will be able to identify them better than this," said Draco. "The necessary equipment is in my office at the Ministry. I may be able to match the victims to a list of known Squibs."

"A physical marker which can belong only to one person on earth, and may be used to positively identify this person," Reid said almost reverently. "I cannot imagine how such a thing would revolutionize police work."

"It is far from flawless, but it is useful," said Draco absently.

"So will you take the case?" Reid asked.

"Well,_ I'll_ take the case," Ginevra said promptly. "Whether Malfoy agrees or not is his affair."

Draco barely heard them through the rush in his head, in his veins, in every bit of his body, his heart pumping with excitement. The familiar sense of possession by the case, by the details, by the mystery—the same feeling he had experienced over the past months with his poison cases at the Ministry. He no longer cared that he was creating the assumption that he would do exactly as Reid asked; the drive to learn more, to uncover more, to fit together the puzzle pieces was a much stronger force.

Reid addressed him directly. "In order to coordinate between the Ministry and the police force, I must have formal assent. Will you help us, Mr. Malfoy?"

"Yes," said Draco, not really even thinking about what he was saying. He simply had to confirm his suspicions about these women. He could almost sooner have stopped breathing than to let this matter go now.

"I need to return to my office and find some records," he said. "I'll run tests as well. I believe that I can learn more about these women. But I will need assistance."

Reid looked from Draco to Ginevra. "Shall I send one of my men?"

"No; he could not enter the Ministry," said Draco. "The anti-Muggle wards are quite strong; I suppose they must have been relaxed specifically for Sir Charles Warren in that one instance."

"What about me?" Ginevra asked. Her voice sounded a bit defiant, and she looked very much as if she fully expected him to refuse.

"Miss Weasley, come with me," he said.

The words were out of his mouth before he remembered that one of the chief attractions of turning down the case and returning to Malfoy Manor in the morning was supposed to be that he need never see Ginevra Weasley again. Her look of surprise seemed to make it all worthwhile, however.

Ginevra gave him a hint of a smile, and he realized, again, that he had been waiting to see that Mona Lisa smile again, and wanting it. "Let's go back to the Ministry, then," she said.


	9. Chapter 9

If you can keep your head when all about you  
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you…

_Rudyard Kipling, __If: A Father's Advice to His Son_

* * *

"Why on earth must the entrance to the Ministry be located in a public loo?" asked Draco, his nose wrinkling.

Ginny struggled to keep her face stern and straight, but the effort was not quite working. She could feel amusement and excitement bubbling up in her chest, no matter how hard she tried to tamp those feelings down.

"Specifically in order to irritate _you_, Malfoy," she said sweetly, and was rewarded by his scowl. It was astonishing how much his face varied, depending on which expression it wore. Any animation, whether the expression was positive or negative, lent his features a vivacity and a handsomeness that he did not possess in repose, when he resembled a well-carved but boring portrait of an aristocrat in marble.

_Oh, what a goose I am! Why am I thinking that Malfoy is handsome under any circumstances? _

"Be that as it may," said Draco, "as we've got no choice in our method of entry, we'd best get on with it." He went into a stall and motioned Ginny to join him in the toilet bowl, screwing up his face in distaste.

"I sincerely hope that no-one happens upon us. Ugh, this is so…."

"Lower class?" asked Ginny.

"If you insist on putting it in that way, then yes," said Draco. "You must admit, it's not very dignified."

"They are supposed to allow employee Apparition eventually," Ginny pointed out. She had never been happy with this method of entry either, even though one's clothing was always magically protected.

"_Eventually_…" muttered Draco. "I am fast losing any faith I ever possessed in the ability of the Ministry to accomplish anything useful."

Ginny could not quite think of a retort to that statement. She pulled the lever to flush the toilet transportation instead. Nothing happened.

"What have you done _now,_ Weasley?" Draco asked her, in tones that could have held more patience. "Oh, for the love of Ba'al—let me do it."

"I know how to flush a toilet, Malfoy," she snapped.

He gave her a dirty look, and she could all but hear him speculate aloud on the possibility—or lack thereof—that a flush toilet had ever existed in the Weasley household. Draco pushed the lever, with the same lack of result. His brows knitted into a scowl as Ginny suppressed a laugh, he whipped out his wand and cast several spells with increasingly force. They still remained standing in the toilet bowl, but they exchanged glances.

"Something is very wrong," said Ginny.

"I should say it is." He frowned. "The wards are set against us."

"I've never heard of such a thing happening before." Strange suspicions were starting to stir in Ginny's mind.

"Nor have I," said Draco, sounding grim. "And it definitely would not have happened by accident. For Ba'al's sake, let's get out of this toilet at least." He helped Ginny to climb out and stand on the floor.

"What can this mean?" she asked.

"I don't know, but—oh!"

A Ministry owl flew straight into the stall, nearly hitting Draco in the head. He batted it away and unrolled the parchment it carried. His scowl grew darker as he read.

"What is it?" asked Ginny.

"I suppose that you ought to see it." Draco pushed the parchment over to her.

_My dear Mr. Malfoy, _

_The inconvenience to yourself regarding the Whitechapel murder case must be considerable. Your delicate and most correct sensibilities are surely irritated to fever pitch at the very thought of working alongside Muggles. I do so apologize for any slight that I may have cast upon the honorable and ancient Malfoy name by even exposing you, however briefly, to a representative of the Muggle Metropolitan police. Therefore, I am releasing you from any hint of tiresome obligation in this matter. I have no doubt that your great-uncle will be overjoyed to see you return to your estates. Do not put yourself to the trouble of cleaning out your desk; all personal effects shall be sent to Malfoy Manor. Again, please do accept my most sincere apologies, as slight and insufficient as they must appear in proportion to the offense, which was, I do assure you, quite unintentional. _

_I remain, sir, yr most obedient servant, _

_Minister Faris Spavin_

Ginny would have had a horrible urge to laugh if the matter had not been so serious. The Minister was removing Malfoy from the case, no matter how pretty the language in which he dressed his commands. This undoubtedly meant that it would be referred to someone else in the department, and she could work with someone like Colin Creevey or Dean Thomas. She ought to have been glad. But gladness was not her first reaction, not at all. Not that it mattered. Malfoy would be overjoyed at this excuse to withdraw. He would now tell her that they would leave the public loo, that she might continue if she liked, but that he was returning to his estates at once. And her first, awful, treacherous thought was that she did not want him to go.

Draco crumpled the parchment and threw it in the toilet.

"Very well," he said. "We'll find another way in."

"W-what?" Ginny stammered.

Draco raised his eyebrows. "Am I speaking with sufficient volume"

"Yes, but—I never would have thought that you would fail to take this excuse to drop the case and escape," Ginny confessed.

"Consider this a lesson in refraining from assumptions, Weasley." The corners of his mouth quirked up. "I don't respond well to being told what to do."

"I suppose that no Malfoy would tolerate being ordered about, is that it?" Ginny asked dryly.

"I don't know about that, but _I _do not. I'm going into the Ministry, no matter what I need to do. There is sure to be another way of gaining entrance."

Ginny raised her chin. "You mean that _we're_ going in."

He studied her face, his grey eyes serious. "You could get yourself in a great deal of trouble if we are caught."

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Your family connections would weasel you out of it, but I'm too plebian, you mean?"

"Since you insist on putting it that way, yes," said Draco. "Are you sure that you are willing to take the risk? You can turn back now. I wouldn't think less of you for that."

She wanted to say that she didn't give a tinker's damn what he thought of her, but that would be a lie. "I am most certainly not turning back," she said, marching out of the stall.

He put a hand on her arm, stopping her as she began to pass the row of sinks. Each of his fingertips seemed to make a separate impression on her skin, leaving an itching, burning sensation that she tried to ignore.

"Why?" he asked.

"Well—" She tossed her head. "I'm not about to be shown up by you, that's why!"

He leaned back against a sink, looking at her with a strange expression, not quite skeptical, rather searching.

"Whatever my reasons are, we certainly do not have the time to go over them right now," she said, facing him. If you believe there is another way into the Ministry, we need to find it."

He nodded, the flare of the gas lamp stuck high in the tiled wall striking a golden tint across his silvery hair. "That's not the real reason, is it?" He leaned forward. "You want this case. You want to be useful. You don't feel that what you have been doing is particularly meaningful, even though you've done well with what you've been given."

"How do you—" she gasped, stopping herself just before finishing the question.

It was true. She knew it at once. Ginny was desperately restless. She wanted, _needed,_ more than those simple straightforward cases where she was required to do no more than find wives and retrieve daughters or husbands who had run away with illicit lovers. She craved more. She must have work with meaning. And the Whitechapel murder case meant something, all right.

"Whatever the reason is, I want in," she said.

"Very well."

"_Is _there any other way into the building?" asked Ginny, trying to think. "All of the entrances to the Ministry are so well guarded."

"There is one, or at least it is a possibility," Draco said slowly.

He brought her to the rear of one of the stone outbuildings, into a small blind alley, and up to a low wooden door carved with a dragon. Draco muttered a few words, and the door swung open. He pulled her inside swiftly, before the red grenadier guarding the nearby entrance to the Foreign Office could spot them.

"It worked," whispered Ginny once the door had closed.

"I shouldn't start the celebrations yet if I were you," Draco whispered back. "The door belongs to the Malfoys, as do these passages, so they could hardly fail to let me through. My concern is that we may be spotted along the way. We'll need to be careful—and quiet."

Ginny needed no encouragement on that account. It seemed wrong to speak or walk loudly in the dim corridor. Their feet clattered against the stone floors, and she guessed that the walls and ceiling must be stone as well, but she could not tell where the faint light was coming from. Draco turned right, then left, then right, and then she lost track completely. Sometimes the ceiling dipped so low that he had to bend almost double and Ginny nearly felt her head scrape the stone; sometimes the walls narrowed, and they were forced to walk single file.

Once, Ginny heard strange sounds, odd clicks and clacks, and bursts of static. She paused, trying to figure out where they were coming from, and Draco hissed back at her.

"Sweet Salazar, whatever are you doing, Weasley? Stay with me! If you allow yourself to get lost, you might never be found again."

A chill spread through Ginny, and she ran to catch up with Draco. "I heard—an odd sound, that's all," she panted. 'I wondered what it might be."

"I don't doubt that there are many strange noises here," said Draco after a moment. "I'm taking some odd twists and turns so that we can't be followed. And the further I've strayed from the most obvious path, the more strange things I have heard."

Ginny tried to ignore the whispers and murmurs and even words that she heard from that point on. When someone seemed to speak in her ear, she jumped.

"where—how—we've gone too far-" the voice whispered.

"Wh—what is that?" she asked, hating herself for the way her own voice was trembling.

Draco made no answer.

"—no—not far enough," a second, different voice went on.

Ginny bit her lip to keep from crying out. She'd _die_ before showing that sort of weakness in front of Draco Malfoy.

A hand slipped into hers, and she nearly screamed before realizing that it was his hand. She breathed deeply, stood still, and felt the warmth of his skin spreading all through hers, the firm muscles, the tight, comforting grip. And his pulse was racing. He'd been startled too.

"Let's continue on," he said at last. "But stay close."

The voices went on, sometimes below the range of hearing, sometimes rising into a clear phrase or two.

"—if you think we're going to find—"

"—but it should be here—"

"What are they?" Ginny couldn't help asking. "_Who _are they?"

"I haven't any idea," Draco replied, his hand pulling her to a stop. "I wish I knew which way to take now. The left, I believe… but I'm not sure…"

They walked for several more minutes in silence.

_Stomp!_

Ginny jumped. Draco hand tightened in hers, and they both stood still.

The sounds echoed and re-echoed, bouncing off the stone walls. Eerie muffled calls that sounded like they could only have been reaching their ears through water. A huge dense flapping sound, as if from enormous wings far above the passages. Mostrous thudding noises like massive beasts; swooshing sounds that sounded like huge fish passing only a few feet away.

"Oh, gods, what is it?" Ginny whimpered, unable to stop herself.

Draco's voice whispered in her ear, his breath warm and his hand still solid in hers.

"I couldn't say. But I believe that we began to go in the wrong direction. We are moving backwards in some fashion that makes no sense."

An impossible thought struck Ginny. "Malfoy, there was a point when this entire section of the British Isles was underwater. Could these tunnels somehow form a sort of time machine? Do you know what I mean; have you read that book?"

"Yes, but please refrain from mentioning it in front of Muggles, Weasley. H.G. Wells won't be publishing it outside of the wizarding world for several more years. And I don't think it's useful at the moment." His voice took on a tight, strained quality. "I am not sure of the right way back to the Ministry."

Ginny swallowed down her sudden fear. "Come on, Malfoy! I'll never believe that you are admitting to something you don't know. Imagine all the generations of your ancestors turning in their graves at the very thought. Why don't we just trace our way back? I know we took a left turn at the last fork; perhaps it simply was the wrong way."

"Excellent idea, Weasley." She could not see his smile, but she heard it. "We can never let my ancestors know that I said any such thing, of course."

"You really are a dreadful prat," she muttered, but she was smiling too. They turned back and kept walking.

"—I've lost them," the first voice said.

"—we'll need to go back—"

"—it's not my fault, don't start in with blaming _me_ again, this was such a long shot in the first place—"

Then suddenly, as if cut with a knife, the strange voices stopped, and they were facing a door with a line of light around it. Draco reached down to the doorknob, and to Ginny's intense relief, he was able to turn it and open the door. She stepped out into a medium-sized office with dark wooden furniture and filing cabinets, a table, and shelves of potions, vials, and equipment. Without being told, she knew it for Draco's office at once.

"We found it," she said, walking over to the table to examine some glass beakers.

"Don't _touch_, Weasley." He moved to stand beside her.

She wondered if he would take her hand again to pull it away from the beakers, which perversely made her want to actually touch them. He had dropped her hand when he opened the door, and she could still feel the flesh of her palm tingling. "I wasn't going to, Malfoy," she said instead, yanking her hand away.

"Sorry. I'm a bit on edge."

Ginny decided to refrain from pointing out that the long-suffering Malfoy ancestors were doubtless wondering when they'd get a break from the ceaseless revolving in their graves. Any Malfoy apologizing to a Weasley likely meant that they needed to prepare for a good deal more exercise.

"That's perfectly all right," she said. "I suppose that I am as well."

He let out a long sigh as he pulled several files from a cabinet. "I must admit, I'm quite relieved to be here at all. There were several points in that journey when I was sure that we'd be wandering those corridors forever."

"So did I," confessed Ginny. "I can't help wondering what all those voices might have meant."

Draco shrugged. "The Malfoy tunnels are old beyond reckoning, most likely fashioned before the Druids ever left the British Isles. It only makes sense that we'd hear some queer sounds." He offered a chair to Ginny at the table.

"It's odd," said Ginny, sitting down. "Nothing that they said made sense, but I feel as if it could have done if we'd only had more time to listen to them."

"Perhaps. As fascinating as that question is, however, we don't have the leisure to explore it now. We need to learn if these women are on any sort of Squib registry," said Draco. "And I am far from sure of how much time we have for that project. If you would start going through the O-Z files in search of the names, I would be much obliged."

"Why wouldn't we?" asked Ginny, picking up the files. "Have enough time, I mean?"

"If you recall one section the Minister's letter," said Draco, "he was kind enough to inform me that I needn't bother returning to my office, as someone would be sent to clean out my desk."

"Oh," said Ginny, understanding his meaning. "There's no way to know when that might happen."

"Exactly. For all we know, they could even be sent tonight. So I will waste no time."

Ginny swiftly paged through her half of the files. "I see no records for Emma Smith or Martha Tabram."

Draco nodded. "Those names might not even be genuine, but I ought to be able to at least identify them by essence if they were in the files at all, and they are not. It is as I suspected earlier."

"They were the sorts of Squibs that had a very low level of magic, so there wouldn't be records for them," said Ginevra.

"Exactly so. But the others…. Well, see for yourself. The Longbottom woman went by the false name of Polly Nichols, but she was still easy to identify." Draco pulled out two files and showed them to Ginny.

Ginny had a sinking feeling as she read the information for Mary Ann Longbottom and Annie Chapman. A little over thirty years earlier, they had each attended Hogwarts for one month of the first year before preliminary tests revealed them both as Squibs. There were no records for what had happened to either of them after their unceremonious expulsion.

"They were brought to the wizarding world for only one month, and then they were forced to leave it forever," said Ginny. "Can you imagine how awful it would be?"

"Well, I can't say that I'm able to picture the experience, because the Malfoys have attended Hogwarts since before the school was built," said Draco. "But—"

"You prat. You know perfectly well what I mean, and anyway, you can't attend a school before it existed!" Ginny gave him a half-hearted shove. A moment later, half of her mind wished that he hadn't touched him; the other half wished far more strongly that she had never removed her hand from his arm. His muscles were strong and lean and sinewy, and if she'd only run her fingers up and down his forearm, she could have—

_No, I couldn't!_

"I was on the point of saying, Weasley, that I am sure it would be dreadful in ways that I can't imagine." Draco sounded quite serious

"But it happened to both of them over thirty years ago. That was when owls were still sometimes sent to Squibs," she said through a lump in her throat. "Or does it happen even now?"

"Oh, yes. The Ministry is still working on that problem, no matter how loudly they claim it has been solved," said Draco, touching his wand to something in a vial of dark liquid. "Yes—those two women were not so very far from being witches, there is no doubt about that. What sad cases."

Ginny was closing the P files when she saw something at the top of one of them that made her stop.

_Potter, Rose. June 1874, failed Magical Essence examinations. Revealed as high level Squib. Expelled at end of third year. _

Ginny frowned. "Malfoy, wasn't that constable named Potter? I mean, at the Leman Street station this morning?"

"Yes, he was. He gave us both a less than pleasant glare, as I recall," said Draco.

"There's a Rose Potter in these files. Look." She pushed the file folder towards Draco, and his eyes widened as he read.

"How dreadful," he said.

"I would say so," agreed Ginny, shaking her head. "It's horrid enough to be sent a Hogwarts letter and then sent back to the Muggle world after a month. But to be expelled after three full years…"

"She must very nearly have been a full blown witch," said Draco. He hesitated. "I can perhaps imagine cases in which the rules ought to be bent to a degree, and Rose Potter's sad situation was one of them."

"Hmph." Ginny tried to hide her smile.

He frowned. "What I don't understand is why there is no mention of a brother."

"It's similar to what happened with Smith and Tabram, perhaps? He was a much lower-level Squib, and he wouldn't have been in the Hogwarts records at all?" offered Ginny.

"I suppose that may prove to be the answer, because the Potter policeman surely is her brother. Their resemblance is striking. See—this photo was taken during her last week at Hogwarts." He opened the file to show a wizarding photo to Ginny. A girl of about thirteen years old stared out at them both, her hair long, glossy, and raven black, her brows dark over intense bottle-green eyes of a shade that Ginny had never seen. Except in the eyes of the young policeman this morning, she realized, the one who had looked so strangely at both herself and Draco Malfoy. As if he knew them, or at least recognized who they were, when he couldn't possibly.

"Something very strange is going on here, isn't it?" asked Ginny.

Draco nodded. "I have no theory as of yet to what this might be. But I agree with you. These puzzle pieces must fit together somehow."

"It's only that there is no way of knowing how. Not yet," said Ginny.

They stared at each other for a moment, and Ginny felt their minds starting to work on tandem, tentatively moving on the same track. It was a strange, perilous sensation—perhaps even more so than when he had taken her hand, or when she had thought of touching him.

At that moment, a set of stealthy footsteps began to approach the outer door to the office.

Draco stared at her for a split second and then motioned her beneath the table. She followed him without a word, trying to breathe quietly and thinking that the two of them were altogether too close in the cramped space.


	10. Chapter 10

They did not kiss. They could not. How can you mercilessly imprison all natural sexual instinct for twenty years and then not expect the prisoner to be racked by sobs when the doors are thrown open?

_John Fowles, The French Lieutenant's Woman _

* * *

Ginevra Weasley was too close to him, thought Draco. Too close entirely. He could feel the warmth of her body and the rhythm of her breathing. His palm still itched and tingled from the sensation of her cool, smooth hand in his.

She shifted position, and her breasts brushed his back for just a moment. Their skin was separated by layer after layer of cloth, her petticoat, corset, bodice, blouse, and jacket, and his linen, shirt, waistcoat, and sack coat. But the barriers might as well not have existed at all- where he was concerned, at least.

Draco silently gritted his teeth. He ought to have accompanied Goyle, Flint, and Zabini to the Crystal Palace the night before. He needed that release, that relief from bodily tension, which he was sure would guarantee a calmer attitude now. But it was a bit too late for any such relief at this point. _Tonight, perhaps. And I'd like a redhead this time—oh, no-_

The door creaked open above the table. Ginevra's breathing quickened, and he put a warning finger to her warm, moist lips, wishing, too late, that he had not.

Spavin walked into the office, moving very quietly towards Draco's desk and opening a drawer.

"Come on," Draco said in an undertone, pulling Ginevra out from beneath the table and getting swiftly to his feet.

"May I be of assistance, Minister?" he asked in his most clipped tones.

"Oh! Er, Mr. Malfoy… Miss Weasley."

"Seems rather dark in here, doesn't it," Draco said dryly, turning to touch a witchlight on the wall. He saw that Spavin was flushing.

"How helpful to find you both here," said the Minister in rather high, quick tones. "I'm so pleased to have the opportunity to speak to you." He sounded anything but.

Draco decided that there was really no point in asking what Spavin thought he was going to find in the desk drawer, and why he had believed he would find anyone in an office hours after normal work hours were over.

"May I ask why you are so eager for that event?" he asked.

Spavin rubbed his hands together. "I suppose we'd best get straight to the point. You are both very busy people, after all. The fact of the matter is, I'm closing down the Whitechapel case. I cannot do that for the Muggle police, of course, and indeed, they are the best organization to handle the matter. But I am ending the Ministry's involvement—or rather, not allowing it to begin."

'What?" exclaimed Ginevra. "Minister, how can you say such a thing? Surely it's our duty to continue with this case now that we've started!"

"Ah." The Minister waggled a pudgy forefinger. "But that's the problem, you see. Since the murderer is non-magical, we have no business at all with the case."

Ginevra opened her mouth, but Draco gave her a warning look. He wanted to figure out how much Spavin knew. And if he knew as much as they did, he wanted to see just how far Spavin would go to hang himself, given enough rope. Neither of these projects would be aided by revealing that they themselves knew what the murder victims really were. He hoped that Ginevra would understand this without being told, and oddly, it seemed that such was the case. She subsided into silence and looked at the Minister warily.

"Perhaps you are right. But I should like to hear your explanation for that reasoning," Draco said in a neutral voice.

Spavin smiled, clearly feeling that he had won a point. "I am facing the fact that our involvement could lead to embarrassment, and for no purpose. The Whitechapel murder case is not in our jurisdiction and does not concern us. One feels sympathy for these poor women, of course. But we oughtn't to be involved; it's as simple as that. Even if the Metropolitan Police cannot catch the killer, well, that is regrettable, but you know that we have not and do not become involved in purely Muggle affairs. That is precisely what these are. Whoever the killer is, he is a Muggle, as are the victims."

"Yes, the killer is a Muggle—at least as far as I can tell at the moment. But the victims were not." Draco looked squarely at the Minister and decided that the moment had come. "These women were Squibs. All four of them. Did you know this?"

Spavin's eyes flew open wide. "No! No. I swear that I did not."

Draco knew at once that the Minister was telling the truth. For the most part, at least.

"But did you suspect?" demanded Ginny.

"I did wonder once if this might be, well, a slight possibility," admitted Spavin, beginning to turn pale. "But it was no more than idle speculation! I did not believe for an instant that it really was so. I certainly did not _know_; I swear that I did not."

"So does this mean that we'll investigate after all? It must mean that," persisted Ginny. "Our involvement is necessary now. It's not some sort of purely Muggle problem."

"Well. Er…" Spavin's eyes darted from side to side as if seeking an exit.

"You don't want to investigate because these women are Squibs," said Ginny, leaning forward, her eyes flashing.

"That simply isn't true," insisted Spavin. "It… I…Miss Weasley, you have the wrong idea entirely." He pulled a handkerchief out of the pocket of his robes and began to wipe his brow with trembling hands.

Draco could almost have taken pity on the man. He was completely flustered, and when Ginevra whirled on him, Draco really thought that he might crumple onto the floor.

"You don't care about what happens to Squibs at all, do you?" asked Ginevra, fire in her eyes. "You'd just as soon see them disappear, so that they needn't be an embarrassment to the wizarding world!"

"I swear that isn't true," said Spavin in a small voice. He was leaning against the table, looking as if he might collapse at any moment without its support. He looked up at her pleadingly. "But… oh, the matter is so complicated… Can you not simply let this case go, Miss Weasley?"

"No, I cannot!" she nearly snarled. "And you cannot force me to it."

The Minister straightened up and returned his handkerchief to his pocket. He cleared his throat and seemed to regain some dignity.

"Miss Weasley, I am very much afraid that you are wrong on that point," he said firmly. "I can indeed order you from the case."

Draco felt a surge of irritation. The Minister seemed to have either forgotten that he was standing only a few feet away, or to somehow take it for granted that he would support the idea of dropping the case and ending their involvement. Of course, he thought, he had remained neutral so far in the matter.

"Miss Weasley, your maidenly sensitivities have also, I fear, been unbecomingly strained," Spavin was saying now.

"I should greatly appreciate it if you would speak to me directly," she said through gritted teeth. "I am standing less than three feet away from you."

He turned to her, and his fatuous smile had the same effect upon Draco as fingernails scraped across a chalkboard. He could only imagine what Ginevra thought of it.

"My dear Miss Weasley— I think it's best that you leave the department for a while. Take a vacation. A trip to the seashore, to sort things out."

Her brows swooped into a scowl. "I don't need to sort anything out!"

"The tragedy, after all… and no more than a year has passed…" Spavin pasted on a sympathetic look, which was worse than the smile. He turned to Draco with just the slightest hint of a conspiratorial wink. "Wouldn't you agree, Mr. Malfoy?"

Draco felt a flash of anger. Perhaps it was at having been ignored for so long; perhaps it was because the Minister seemed to assume that he was in agreement, and perhaps it was only because he could not bear to see her humiliated by such as this jumped-up Spavin.

So in a moment of perversity, he spoke. "I fear not, Minister. She is my assistant."

Spavin frowned. "But surely you agree that for us to become involved in this case at all is problematic at best, even if the victims may be Squibs, which I must say I am not thoroughly convinced of. And even if the Ministry did decide to do so, well… when all is said and done, this position of yours at the Ministry was—er—amusing to you, I am sure, but for a gentleman wizard of your position in society, you cannot wish to retain it. Such work really is beneath you."

Ginevra shot him a guarded look, and Draco could almost hear her thoughts. _Now that we are at the point of decision, Malfoy must agree with Spavin. He cannot really want to remain at the Ministry, or to do actual work. He's going to say that of course he doesn't wish it, of course it's beneath him, and of course he'll leave._

When thinking over the events later on, Draco knew, if he were to be honest with himself, that a part of himself indeed agreed with the Minister. That was why he had sent his great-uncle the furious letter the night before, why he had believed himself ready to return to his estates, and why he had thought that he would have no difficulty in giving up his work at the Ministry, which had, after all, only been some sort of hobby.

But even that part of Draco's mind was floored by what Spavin said next.

The Minister leaned closer and lowered his voice slightly. "Mr. Malfoy, I will speak frankly. it's no use pretending that you do not have responsibilities on your estates, or that you will not need to return to them. Your great-uncle will require your help. We both know it to be so."

_He knows about the letter,_ realized Draco. _He will never admit it, but he does know. What sort of surveillance has he been doing on me? Perhaps now is not the time to find out, but I will not forget this. _

He straightened up and spoke in tones of pure ice. "I don't care what you think you might know, Spavin," he said. "I am staying in the Ministry. And you can do nothing to get rid of me."

"I hardly think—" Spavin began to bluster.

"It's a matter of supreme indifference to me what you think. My position has belonged to the Malfoys since before this ministry was built—long before, in fact, as has this office. Check the regulations; you'll find my tenure is quite in order."

Draco wondered in an abstract sort of way if the Minister's head would actually explode after that.

"Very well," Spavin finally said. "But I would very much like for both of you to listen to me seriously for a moment. You have won your point, so I do think that you owe me that much."

Draco nodded, and after a moment, so did Ginevra.

"I believe that this murderer is a Muggle. Would you agree?"

"Based on what we know at the moment, I would," Draco said.

"Well, I am not pleased with the possible consequences of this fact, particularly because it would be so very difficult to keep the truth from leaking out." He looked at them, his vague eyes suddenly focused and shrewd. "This could mean an upsurge of Pureblood propaganda. It would provide ammunition to any wizard already prepared to believe the worst about Muggle criminals. Or most likely of all, a prolonged fight to keep the news from the Muggle press. Have you read any of their newspapers lately? They are suffering a sea change, into something most decidedly strange. Sensationalism is the order of the day. Dramatic stories, detailed descriptions of violence and gore… anything that can be classified as shocking or exciting, anything that provides an immediate thrill. Between scandal sheets, yellow journalism, penny dreadfuls, and all the rest… I'm sure you can see the problem."

Draco licked his suddenly dry lips. He saw it indeed, although he was not about to admit it to Spavin.

"I appreciate your concerns," Ginevra said, her eyes narrowing. "But I'm simply not willing to accept that we ought to sweep all of these murders under the rug, and all because Muggle papers might get hold of our connection with the investigation."

"Nor am I," Draco said hurriedly, a bit annoyed that she had expressed his own thoughts before he had a chance to say a word. He did not realize the implications of what he had said until he saw the Minister staring at him.

"Does this mean, Mr. Malfoy, that you are truly serious in your intent? You will remain with the case, and you will insist on Miss Weasley as your assistant?"

'I believe that you heard me the first time I spoke. I will not repeat myself." Draco stared back at him.

Spavin sighed. "Very well. Then at the moment, there is nothing more to say."

He turned and left, closing the door with more force than necessary.

Ginevra's shoulders were shaking, and when Draco turned to look at her, he saw that she was trying not to laugh.

"Assistant?" she asked.

"Oh, do dry up." Draco leaned against the desk. "You were right to begin with. Spavin really did think I'd refuse, and then he could explain to Warren that he had no-one else expert enough, and the collaboration would never take place. See? I am admitting that you were right. Do have the graciousness to not go on about the matter from now until doomsday."

"Oh, I think I have enough graciousness for that, at least." She looked at him. "Do you really think he didn't seriously suspect that the women were Squibs?"

Draco thought about that. "I believe so, I should like to know what his grounds were for even slight suspicion, however."

"So do I. And perhaps we'll need to find out if we really do, well…"Ginevra lapsed into silence, walked slowly to the window and stared into the darkness. She spoke again. "Malfoy, I… I must say that I find it hard to believe that you've done what I just witnessed."

"As do I, but it's done now." He moved to stand beside her.

"So. This really does mean that you're officially on the case, and so am I?"

"That is what I said, wasn't it?" he retorted.

"No. You really didn't quite. You only said that you would do as you decided." She sat abruptly in the armless chair with an unladylike whoosh of skirts. "And you might have only been speaking in the heat of the moment, at that. Did you really mean what you implied… or will you decide an hour from now that you prefer to retreat? You still could, you know. Nothing could make Spavin happier."

She was right, he realized. No matter what he had said to the Minister, he could still claim that he had spoken rashly and withdraw from this case. It was clear that whatever else Spavin thought, he believed it was a hopeless one. For all that Draco was able to tell at the moment, he himself did not see how the case could be solved. The Muggle police were far more skillful than he had believed, and they were completely at sea.

"Well?" Ginevra's voice broke into his thoughts. "What will you do, Malfoy? Will you take this case, or not? I need to know. If you refuse it, Spavin will not re-assign it to someone else. He wants it closed down from our end entirely, and his opinion will not be changed by the fact that the victims have all been Squibs." She clenched her jaw, making the muscles jump beneath her finely grained skin. "I will fight him, but on my own, I don't think that I can win. Still, I won't beg you. I only want to know what you will do."

He walked a step or two closer and looked down at her. She met his gaze fearlessly, without blinking. Draco remembered that moment the night before, standing in Trafalgar Square, thinking about Darwin, thinking of himself as a helpless fossil trapped in the rush of evolution.

_I will not be that_, he thought._ I refuse. I will decide my own destiny, no matter what consequences might follow this decision_

And he knew what he would do.

Draco Malfoy took a deep breath, and he stepped across his own personal Rubicon.

"I will."

"Thank you. Oh, thank you!" She clasped her hands in her lap and smiled up at him. "I've wanted something meaningful to do at the Ministry for so long. And… perhaps you have as well?"

"Perhaps." He was standing very close to her, he realized. He also realized that he had been hoping for, waiting for, that smile of hers to appear again. Draco looked down at her joined hands. He wanted to reach out and pull one hand into his again, when there was no clear reason to do so. To take his time in touching her, to find out if her skin was as smooth as it looked. He wanted…

Impossible things. And where Ginevra Weasley was involved, he knew how impossible they truly were.

An owl flew through the window, the magical glass temporarily dissolving to allow its passage, and landed on Draco's shoulder. He winced, recognizing the Malfoy messenger. Tyl had the sharpest claws of any eagle owl he'd ever known. He took the parchment from its claws, unrolled it, and began to read.

_My dear boy, _

_I do hope you're enjoying London. Is the Mecklenburg Square flat sufficient in size? There ought to be at least one Enlargening charm in the kitchen. Do use it if you require additional space. I should tell you that Romilda Vane is in the country this autumn for the grouse season She has been asking about you, and she is quite curious about the date of your arrival, as she would enjoy spending more time with you on the estate. I have seen little of the girl, but she cannot be as bloody irritating as her mother, because no woman could. I hope not, at least. _

"Whyever are you grimacing? You look like you've swallowed a lemon," said Ginevra.

"Never mind." Draco returned to the letter.

_At any rate, I'll get to the point of this scribbling on foolscap, my boy, without further ado. You must do as you like, of course. But I wish you would stay in London a bit longer. You are young, Draco. Dash it all, you ought to see the world and enjoy life in the hustle and bustle of the city. Do indulge an old man's wish, won't you? Or, if you prefer, you could return to the estate at once. You should make Romilda Vane a happy woman, without a doubt—although I cannot say that I would care to hear the banns read for the two of you. _

_Abraxas Malfoy_

"What? What did it say?" asked Ginny.

Draco laughed and dropped the letter on the table, turning to her.

"The letter was from my great-uncle. It was in response to—well, never mind."

"Does he want you to return?" she asked in a quieter voice. Her golden eyes looked troubled when they studied him.

She still didn't truly trust that he would remain in London, he realized. To be fair, he was not sure that he could blame her.

"Not particularly," he said. "Which is a lucky coincidence, because I have already decided that I shall stay."

"Oh." She looked down in her lap.

"I'll return to the estates at some point soon for a visit, of course," he said. "He and my mother are my only near relatives living now."

She looked up, her eyes determined. "Malfoy, about yesterday, when I said—well. I was rude. I did not mean to be. I'm truly sorry."

"I'm sorry as well," he said, standing at the edge of the table. "I did not know about the tragedies in your family." He brushed off the beginning of her protests. "Perhaps you will say that there is no reason why I should have known, but your half-mourning ought to have made the matter perfectly clear to me."

"It's really quite all right," she said.

"Please. Accept my most sincere condolences," he said stiffly. Did she feel the emotions behind the words? A lifetime of emotional suppression made it impossible for him to express them more clearly. For the moment, at least.

"I do. And thank you," she said softly.

She reached up and out to him. He could have pulled away, and he knew that he ought to do so. Instead, he clasped the hand she offered, and he felt the warmth and strength of her. They were skin on skin, without the barrier of gloves, without the excuse that he needed to keep her close for her own safety, without the pretense of any of the social conventions that bound them both in the elaborate social rules of their time.

She smiled shyly, looking up at him, her pulse quickening in her wrist.

And in a flaming moment, standing apart from all else, he felt a staggering rush of desire, a thousand times stronger than what he had felt in his club the night before when Goyle had asked him to the Crystal Palace. That had been only an idle moment, a need to sate a physical desire that lightly troubled his body.

He wanted to seize her hand and throw her to the floor. He wanted to tear the prim blouse and skirt and jacket from her body. He wanted to fall upon her and use her as he would use a whore; he wanted to touch and stroke and coax her into pleasure, to make love to her tenderly and hear her cries of passion, he wanted—

Then she pulled his hand out of his, and they sprang apart.

Draco waited a few moments until his breathing had stirred, and then he caught her eye, almost fearfully. Her smile was small and tight, and he knew that they would both be able to pretend that nothing had happened at all. It had only been a touch of hands.

"Shall we leave?" he asked her. She nodded.

They walked out together through the main exit and the subdued atrium. He would need to be careful around her, he decided, to redouble his efforts to do so. What he wanted from her was precisely what he could not have from a middle class young woman in their society. With an older, sophisticated woman of his own station, matters would have been different. With a skilled courtesan at a high class brothel, they would have been very different indeed. But not with anyone like Ginevra Weasley. The solution was easy, of course. He would simply exercise self-control.

Glancing at her bland, blank expression as they neared the outer doors, he wondered if she had sworn to do the same.

Together, they walked out into the grey sunlight of the quiet wizarding world around Whitehall, both knowing that they stood on more than one sort of precipice, and both determined not to fall.

From an unseen corner on the street, the killer watched them both. His lips curved into a smile. No matter what might happen next, no matter the precise details of how the game played out, the die was cast.

Now, both Draco Malfoy and Ginevra Weasley were caught in his net, and he would begin to tighten it around them. And at last, after all these years, justice would be served.

-the end—

* * *

A/N: Obviously, there's a sequel! 😉 Book 2 ,"From Hell", will tell the rest of the story of how Draco and Ginny catch a killer… and how he catches them.


	11. Bibliography

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. When we enquire into any subject, the first thing we have to do is to know what books have treated of it.

_Samuel Johnson (Boswell's __Life of Johnson__)_

BIBLIOGRAPHY: RESEARCH WORKS CONSULTED AND USED

* * *

A little explanation: this is not a standard works cited and consulted chapter, although I HAVE done a lot of those. I've provided enough information to find these sources and also included notes about why they were helpful/interesting. (I just KNEW that master's degree would be useful…) My favorite sources are starred. Also, I do know the APA citation rules, but I don't always follow them. (For instance, I think it's more helpful to have authors' full names listed than the way you're "supposed" to cite them, which is by the last name and the first initial—so that's how I did it. If you're trying to find the book, the usefulness of the city it was originally published in or the name of the publisher doesn't outweigh the fact that the info just takes up space. So it's _usually _not included here- occasionally, it is.) I want to have a works section that can really be of use to somebody who wants to learn more, and I hope that this is it. Let me know in the comments!

The Maps section provides an understanding of how I visualized the settings for DOW. The citations are basically for the paper maps that were used, because there are way too many problems with citing online sources through FFN.

Primary sources were those written at the time (or autobiographies/memoirs of people alive during the era) and contained first hand reporting, witnesses, information, contemporary attitudes on the subject, etc. I'm also including Victorian fashion plate and design books. Secondary sources are those which are themselves based on the primary ones. And remember, anything published before 1924 is probably available for free on the Gutenberg Project page! This doesn't always work (and sometimes Amazon will have the same books with illustrations and better formatting for 99 cents.) But probably 80% of the time, that's the way to get free Kindle/ebook sources.

I also used a lot of online sources. The citation section for those isn't going to be in the current version of this chapter, though. FFN strips out all the links, so there isn't much of a point to it. I will note a few major categories of sources, and the full citation section will appear in a later version for anyone who wants to see it.

* * *

MAPS

* * *

Bacon's Map of London. (1890) London: G.W. Bacon. (A great map, four square inches to the mile. Not as much detail as the Old Ordnance Survey Maps. but the size is a lot more manageable. I have a printed version; it's also available on Wikimedia Commons.)

Barber, Peter. (2012) London: A history in maps. London: London Topographical Society. (A huge coffee table book with lots of maps showing London from Julius Caesar's 50 AD invasion to the present.)

***Booth, Charles. (1889) Booth's Maps of London Poverty: East and West 1889. Reprinted London: Old House Books, 2013. (Primary source mapping out different income levels. This is the same Charles Booth who founded the Salvation Army.)

Dant, Adam. (2018) Maps of London and Beyond. London: Batsford Press. (Another big coffee table book with a fascinating series of historical maps, mostly based on what was happening, who was living where, and what they were doing in various eras. Ex: a list and map of all the recorded riots in Trafalgar Square.)

Knopf Mapguides. (2019.) London: The city in section-by-section maps. (A little guidebook with foldout maps of sections of the city. Good for a quick look at a modern-day vs. Victorian area. Would be great to take on a trip where you don't know if your phone will always be working.)

***Old Ordnance Survey Maps: Whitechapel, Spitalfields, & the Bank, 1873: The Godfrey Edition. Original 1873, reprinted London: Alan Godfrey Maps, 2018. (This paper map is one in an amazing series of 108. All of London was surveyed and mapped out in 1873. The resolution is so high that if you had all 108 maps, they would easily cover the floor of a large living room. I might actually do this.

I also used several online sources, but the online section of this chapter is going to have to wait! FFN strips out all the links anyway. One great source, though, is in the Scottish National Library online. The Old Ordnance Survey Map of each part of London is an overlay on a current satellite view Google map.

* * *

PRIMARY SOURCES

* * *

Anonymous. (1888) The Story of a Dildoe. (Oh, Victorian p*rnography… whatever you're imagining, it was more explicit and shocking than that. Not, NOT for the easily offended, but very much a product of its time, particularly in the hypocrisy in the difference between what was considered suitable for ladies to read and what was reserved for gentlemen. The morals and manners of the entire era really can't be understood in context without it. This book is a good example.)

Banks, Elizabeth. (1894) Adventures of an American Girl in Victorian London (Victorian London Ebooks Book 11). (Undercover reporting from a journalist who worked as a servant, a laundress, a flower-seller, a crossing sweep, and more. She also posed as an American heiress looking to buy her way into British high society, and it apparently wasn't hard to do.)

***Bly, Nelly. (1890) Ten Days In a Mad-House. (Authentic undercover reporting from one of the female pioneers in journalism. An honest look at the asylum in NYC at the end of the Victorian era.)

Booth, William. (1890) In Darkest England, and the Way Out. (Fascinating look at poverty in London in the late Victorian era, written by the founder of the Salvation Army.)

Cleland, John. (1749) Memoirs of Fanny Hill, a Woman of Pleasure. (Oh, okay, this isn't set in the Victorian era! 😉 But it's a classic book told from the POV of a middle-class prostitute. Not very realistic for most women who actually had to sell sex, but, well, it's such a classic.)

Dartnell, George, and Goddard, Edward Rev. (1893) A Glossary of Words Used In the County of Wiltshire. (Great reference for country speech around Malfoy Manor during the time period.)

***Deslandes, L, M.D. (1839) A Treatise on the Diseases Produced By Onanism, Masturbation, Self-Pollution, and Other Excesses. 2nd edition translated from the French (Absolute bats**t crazy Victorian fear of sex at its finest! This has to be read to be believed. While this book was originally written in the 19th century, the translation became popular in England only during the Victorian era. It continued in popularity and influence all through the era, too.

Flanagan, A. (1889) Victorian Etiquette, Manners, and Customs.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. (1892) The Yellow Wallpaper. (Important early work of feminist literature, great background for mid to late Victorian attitudes towards women's mental health.)

Girouard, Mark (1992.) Victorian Values and the Upper Classes. Proceedings of the British Academy, Vol 78. 49-60.

Gissing, George. Delphi Complete Works of George Gissing (Illustrated). Collected works originally published 1880-1903. (23 novels, 5 short story collections, one list of poetry, 3 nonfiction pieces, a biographical novel, and critical studies on his work. _New Grub Street_ and _The Odd Women_ are probably hos best known books. Great writing from the late Victorian era that explored issues of first-wave feminism before we got the vote, the "new woman", women's work, and just what the &^^* middle class women were supposed to DO with their time besides making picture frames out of fish bones. Which was a thing.)

Grafton, Carol Belanger.  
Victorian Fashions: A Pictorial Archive, 965 Illustrations (Dover Pictorial Archive)

(Amazing original illustrations.)

Hamilcar, Marcia. (1910.) Legally dead: Experiences during seventeen weeks' detention in a private asylum. (Provides some good reasons why we should all be happy we don't live in the late Victorian/Edwardian era. It was very easy to railroad people into asylums, mentally ill or not—and that's what some men did to their inconvenient wives.)

Harris, Kristina.. (1999 reprinted.) Authentic Victorian Fashion Patterns: A Complete Lady's Wardrobe (Dover Fashion and Costumes) New York: Dover Publication, Inc. (I can't even imagine how much of an expert you'd have to be to actually sew something from these patterns, but these _are_ actual, authentic Victorian sewing patterns. Great resource for understanding how the clothing was put together.)

Higg, Mary. (1906) Glimpses Into the Abyss. (Researched and written during the years at the very end of the Victorian era and published a few years afterwards.)

Hughes, Molly. (1934) A Victorian Girl In the 1880's. (Obviously this wasn't written until Molly Hughes was an adult. But it's the autobiography of a middle-class girl's Victorian life with lots of details—many of which will make you glad you live in the twenty-first century.)

Daily Life in Victorian London : An Extraordinary Anthology (Victorian London Ebooks Book 4) (A fascinating collection of documents on all kinds of subjects, almost all from the late Victorian era and a few just past it. Don't miss the 1902 essay on the strange new invention known as the "automobile.")

Jones, Richard. (2019) A Different Type of Crime. Jack the Ripper: The Police Investigation.

Kellogg, John Harvey. (1877) Plain Facts for Old and Young. (Kids, don't masturbate, or civilization itself will fall. And yes, this IS the man who invented Kellogg's cereal. You'll never look at Frosted Flakes the same way again.)

****London, Jack. (1902) The People of the Abyss. (This is the classic source about poverty in the East end of London, written one year after the end of the Victorian era. Yep, this is the _Call of the Wild_ Jack London. He went undercover and lived to write about it. I originally read this at the age of 8 and never forgot it.)

***Mayhew, Henry. (1862) The London Underworld In The Victorian Period - Authentic First-Person Accounts By Beggars, Thieves And Prostitutes. (A classic Victorian reformer investigates poverty.)

Mearns, Andrew. (1883) The Bitter Cry of Outcast London: an inquiry into the condition of the abject poor.

***Olian, Joanne, ed. (reprinted 1999) Full-Color Victorian Fashions, 1870-1893. New York: Dover Publications, Inc. (Amazing collection of full color fashion plates from the late Victorian era. If you want to see what the upper class woman was wearing—and what the middle class aspired to—this is the source.)

Pike, E. Royston, ed. (reprinted 1967) Golden Times: Human documents of the Victorian age. New York: Frederick A. Prager, Inc. (Great collection of original documents from throughout the era.)

Quinn, Tom. Cocoa at Midnight: The real life story of my time as a housekeeper. (Fascinating as told to story from a late Victorian- early 20th century career housekeeper.)

Tom Quinn, Rose Plummer. The Maid's Tale: A Revealing Memoir of Life Below Stairs.

Ruskin, John. (1865) Sesame and Lilies: Of Queen's Gardens. (Classic Victorian misogynist lecture to women about how to be the angel of the house while men went out and did the meaningful work, but… he meant well? Find it on bartleby dot com.)

The Society of Vice. (1879-1881) _The Pearl. Volumes 18-21._ _(__The Pearl_ is a collection of erotic tales, rhymes, songs and parodies in magazine form that were published in London between 1879 to 1881, when they were forced to shut down by the authorities for publishing rude and obscene literature. Another great example of Victorian p*rn. Find it on Wikisource.)

Waugh,. Edwin. (1880) Th' Barrel Organ. (Non-fiction story about the author rambling through Lancashire, very useful for understanding more about the dialect of the time in that county of northwest England. Parts of the area had become very industrialized by the Victorian era, but much of the county was still quite rural. Northern England, Liverpool is located here.)

* * *

SECONDARY SOURCES

* * *

Begg, Paul, Martin Fido, and Keith Skinner. (2010) The Complete Jack The Ripper A-Z - The Ultimate Guide. (A good reference book.)

***Begg, Paul, and Bennett, John. (2017) Jack the Ripper: Includes 30 CGI crime scenes reconstructed in forensic detail. (AMAZING resource, priceless if you want to be able to visualize the settings of the murders and get a feel for the entire surrounding area. Maps, photos, drawings, and more.)

Ibid. (2013) Jack the Ripper: The Forgotten Victims. (A fascinating look at the other women who might actually have been victims of the same killer. I think that at least a few of them probably were, and the true number definitely was not the canonical was Inspector Edmund Reid's opinion- and he likely understood the case better than anyone else.)

Birch, Debra May. (2012) Hairy Palms and the Little Death, Or, Onania and All Its Frightful Consequences; A Combined History of Masturbation and the Hirsute in the 18th and 19th Century West.

Captivating Guides: the Victorian Era.

***Chapman, Patrick. (2013) The Strange World of Victorian Slang: Spunk Fakers, Slap Bangs, &Tipping the Velvet.

Charles River Editors. (2018) Queen Victoria's Army: the History of the British Army During the Victorian Era.

Diniejko, Dr Andrzej. D. Litt. in English Literature and Culture, Warsaw University; Contributing Editor, Poland. The New Woman Fiction.

***Flanders, Judith. (2012) The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens' London. (Great way to get a feel for London in this era. The book concentrates specifically more on the Dickens era, which was 20-40 years earlier than DOW, but most of the info carries over.)

***Ibid.(2003.) Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England. New York: W.W. Hortin, 2003. (LOVE this one. A great way to get an understanding of how the Victorian home reflected the lives of the people who lived in it.)

Ibid. (2011) The Invention of Murder: How The Victorians Reveled In Death And Detection And Created Modern Crime.

*****Fowles, John. (1969) The French Lieutenant's Woman (Wonderful source for mid-Victorian manners and values.)

Gill, Gillian. (2005) Nightingales: The Extraordinary Upbringing and Curious Life of Miss Florence Nightingale.

Goodman, Ruth. (2013) How to Be a Victorian: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Victorian Life. (A great look at the details of the Victorian day, although she really romanticizes things a little too much. No, we SHOULDN'T all be wearing corsets.)

***Gould, Stephen Jay. (1996) The Mismeasure of Man. (Revised & Expanded) (Where did the late Victorian and early twentieth century attitudes about eugenics, sterilization of "defectives", and other ideas that Hitler later picked up on actually come from? Some were British, but to be fair, more were American. The greatest scientist of our age explains it all for you.)

Hempel, Sandra. (2013) The Inheritor's Powder: A tale of arsenic, murder, and the new forensic science. (Don't read before eating. Fascinating story of poisons, murder, and science in the mid-Victorian era.)

Jackson, Lee. (2014) Dirty Old London: The Victorian Fight Against Filth (Don't read before OR after eating. The history of filth, disease spread by contaminated water, the establishment of a sewer system, the birth of the concept of public health, and more! Lots of important but unappetizing descriptions. Let's just say that even in 2019, you probably shouldn't swim in the Thames, but around 1858… OMG no. Just no.)

****Lethbridge, Lucy. (2013) Servants: a downstairs history of Britain from the Nineteenth Century of Modern Times. (If you liked Downton Abbey, you need to read this. A balanced look at the lives of servants from the late Victorian era to basically the 1960's.)

***Matthews, Mimi. (2018) A Victorian Lady's Guide to Fashion and Beauty. Great for detailed information about decade by decade fashion and also some general info about Victorian fashion and beauty.

McCauley, Larry. "Eawr Folk": Language, Class, and English Identity in Victorian Dialect Poetry. _Victorian Poetry. _Vol. 39, No. 2 (Summer, 2001), pp. 287-301 (15 pages)

Milne-Smith, Amy (2011) Coffeehouses to Clubhouses: Understanding the Gentlemen's Clubs of London. In: London Clubland. Palgrave Macmillan, New York

****Oneill, Therese. (2016) Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady's Guide to Sex, Marriage, and Manners. Wonderful recent book of essays on Victorian life and rants about how much it sucked. The author sometimes goes overboard, but it's a good antidote to the weird trend of over-romanticizing the era that we see from authors like Sarah Chrisman or Ruth Goodman.)

***Perry, Anne.(1990.) The Face of a Stranger.

Ibid. (1991) A Dangerous Mourning.

Ibid. (1992) Defend and Betray. (The first three William Monk detective novels. Set in a slightly earlier era than DOW, but great background info on setting, criminals, and police procedurals.)

***Rubenhold, Hallie. (2019) The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper. (An amazing new book that looks at the Ripper case from the perspective of the women and tells the story of their lives.)

Rumbelow, Donald. (2nd edition 2009.) Complete Jack the Ripper Casebook. (Great classic source for basic, overall info, although the author devotes a lot of space to later and unrelated crimes for some weird reason.)

Stevens, Mark. (2014) Life in the Victorian Asylum: The World of Nineteenth Century Mental Health Care. (Kind of an overidealized version of what a psych hospital actually was like by the late Victorian era, but there's no doubt that conditions had improved by that point. There was really nowhere to go but up, though, so that isn't saying much.)

***Summerscale, Kate. (2012) Mrs. Robinson's Disgrace: The Private Diary of a Victorian Lady. (Fascinating book exploring Victorian era attitudes about divorce, women's rights in marriage, and fear of female sexuality.)

Ibid. (2017) The Wicked Boy: An Infamous Murder in Victorian London. (Story of a famous late Victorian/early Edwardian crime.)

***Viney, Charles. (1999) The Authentic World of Sherlock Holmes: An evocative tour of Conan Doyle's Victorian London. New York: Quadrillion Publishing. (OMG, I LOVE this book! Love love love. Amazing resource with photos of the Victorian settings used in the original Sherlock Holmes stories. Incredibly useful for reference for anything set during the late Victorian era.)

Waters, Sarah. (1999). Affinity. (Great contemporary author writing mostly about the issues lesbians faced in the Victorian era. This book focuses more on issues of imprisonment in the mid-Victorian period. Probably not my favorite out of her writing, but still good. The 2008 film adaptation is supposed to be good—it's on my list of things to watch.)

Ibid. (2002) Fingersmith. (Fingersmith is set earlier than the time frame of DOW, more Dickensian. Great scene setting for the East End of London during that earlier time frame and also what it was like to live further out in the country. The 2005 BBC series is also very good.)

***Ibid. (1998) Tipping the Velvet. (TtV is set in 1890 and provides great scene setting for a seaside village, as well as an authentic feel for theaters and actors in the late Victorian era. The 2002 BBC series is also REALLY great. If you like Downton Abbey, you do NOT want to miss Hugh Bonneville playing a socialist!)

Walkowitz, Judith. (1980) Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, class, and the state. New York: Cambridge University Press. (A classic study on prostitution of the era.)

Woodyard, Chris. (2014). The Victorian Book of the Dead (The Ghosts of the Past 4) (Fascinating book about customs and practices surrounding funerals and death, with lots of primary sources. You'll learn what a dead man's knife is! It does focus mostly on America in that era, though.)

* * *

TV SERIES, MOVIES, VIDEOS, ETD

* * *

I used a LOT of sources from Youtube, and… someday, when stranded on a desert island, I'll cite those the way you're supposed to. There are also so, SO many films and TV series set during this era. But here are a few specifics.

* * *

_Jane Eyre_ [Motion Picture, TV Series.] (There have been about a zillion versions of this book on film and video, so… pick one and watch it. They all have strengths and weaknesses. The Ruth Wilson version is especially good. What actually needs to happen is a ten to fifteen-part Netflix series, because there are so many crucial plot points that always have to be left out of any shorter film or series version so far.)

Lowe, Georgina. (Producer.) (2002)_ Tipping the Velvet _[Television Series] London: BBC Worldwide.

Ibid. (2005) _Fingersmith _[Television Series] London: BBC Worldwide.

Sanger, Jonathon. (Producer.) (1980) The Elephant Man. [Motion Picture] Adaptation of Treves, Frederick.(1923) _The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences. _USA; Columbia Pictures. (Great resource for medical attitudes at the time, also scene-setting for the London Hospital in 1888. Most of the events actually took place at the exact same time as the Ripper murders.)

Smallwood, Stephen. (producer) (2012-2016) _Ripper Street_ [Television Series] London: BBC Worldwide. (I actually did almost all of the research on Inspector Edmund Reid BEFORE watching any of this series! He's the main character. But I didn't get the idea from Ripper Street. 😉 )

Silver, Joel (Producer), & Ritchie, Guy (Director) (2009) _Sherlock Holmes_ [Motion Picture] USA: Warner Bros. Pictures. (Great scene setting for the era.)

Great list of films/series set during the Victorian era, in Britain and elsewhere: go to IMDB and search for "Period Dramas-The Victorian Era 1837-1901"


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